


When My Fist Clenches, Crack It Open

by versaphile



Category: Legion (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Allen Ginsberg - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternative Season 3, Alters, Amy Haller POV, Androids, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Character, Astral Projection, Averting the future, Black Character(s), Body Image, Brotherly Love, But this is Legion so death is not a useful concept, Canonical Character Death, Cary Loudermilk POV, Catatonia, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Clark Debussy POV, Complex trauma, DID System, David Haller POV, David's Alters, David's Voices, Deception, Depression, Despair, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Diagnosis, Discussion of Rape, Dissociation, Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Divad (Legion) POV, Dualism, Dvd (Legion) POV, Embodiment, Emotional Growth, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Empathy, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode s02e11: Chapter 19, Existential Crisis, F/M, Family, Fashion & Couture, Fix-It, Forced Relationship, Forgiveness, Friendship, Fuck Amahl Farouk, Fuck Noah Hawley, Gaslighting, Gen, Grief, Grieving, Groping, Healing, Heartbreaking, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, I am fixing all of the things, Kerry Loudermilk POV, Lenore "Lenny" Busker POV, Linguistic Adaptation, Loss of Trust, M/M, Masturbation, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Coercion, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, Mental Projection, Mind Games, Mind Manipulation, Mind Rape, Mindrape Aftermath, Multi, Multiple Personalities, Native American Character(s), Out of Body Experiences, Panic Attacks, Past Relationship(s), Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Imbalance, Pronouns, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Ptonomy Wallace POV, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reconciliation, Recovered Memories, Recovery, Redemption, Season/Series 02, Self-Acceptance, Self-Harm, Self-Trust, Self-Understanding, Sharing a Body, Siblings, Someone Help David Haller, Souls, Stopping Abuse, Suffering, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Survival, Sydney "Syd" Barrett POV, Team as Family, Telepathy, Temporary Character Death, Therapy, Torture, Trauma, Trust, Trust Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Waffles, Whump, beat poetry, canon suicide attempt, compassion - Freeform, couples therapy, developmental trauma, empowerment, if you would like your heart gently smashed come on in, internalized ableism, internalized oppression, sociology - Freeform, support system, victimization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 02:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 131
Words: 518,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15087038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versaphile/pseuds/versaphile
Summary: More than anything else, David wants to believe he's not sick because that means he isn't crazy. It means he can fall in love and live happily ever after. But if he surrenders to that hope and he's wrong, then there's no coming back.The Shadow King is victorious, but the battle for David Haller’s soul has only begun. David fails to escape Division 3's intervention and is forced into therapy. With his relationships ruined, his mind split, and his past a lie, death seems like the only choice left. But Farouk is pulling the strings to keep him alive. As David's friends and family work desperately to save him, David must reclaim his past and present to avoid losing his future to the monster who destroyed him.





	1. Day 1: We have a situation.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to mossomness for her fantastic feedback and support as beta. Thanks to rumtehk-uh for his invaluable help with understanding dissociative identity disorder. Glorious cover art by [abigailsins](http://abigailsins.tumblr.com)!
> 
>   
> [Click for full size!](https://versaphile.com/files/wmfccio.png)
> 
> "When my fist clenches, crack it open  
> Before I use it and lose my cool  
> When I smile, tell me some bad news  
> Before I laugh and act like a fool
> 
> And if I swallow anything evil  
> Put your finger down my throat  
> And if I shiver, please give me a blanket  
> Keep me warm, let me wear your coat"
> 
> —The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

When Syd wakes up, she remembers everything.

She doesn't panic, doesn't cry. She looks at her reflection and touches the cool surface of the mirror.

Her mind has always been her own, the essence of her inviolate soul. And now it's not. Now it's the aftermath of a battleground, the war come and gone, all the buildings blown to rubble.

She remembers what Melanie had said, what had seemed so utterly convincing in the moment. That mind readers were too powerful to trust. That she had to rely only on herself, her own thoughts, her own ideas. Syd believed that. She'd always believed that, except—

Beware of ideas that are not your own. For months the warning echoed through the halls of Division 3, for so long that they just became noise, for so long that she stopped listening to them at all.

Melanie wasn't Melanie. Farouk told Syd what he was doing to her even as he blamed David for it. He read her mind and showed her what she wanted to see: that all her fears and doubts were real, that the only way to stop them was to stop David. To stop the monster, the villain he'd become, was going to become. Will become? Always was?

She pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. Everything exploded, and then David—

David made her forget. He violated her mind. He did that to her. That's not love. And then he came to her, strange and urgent, and he had sex with her, knowing what he'd done. 

He did that to her. Her David, the David that she loved, who always asked permission, who respected her boundaries, who was gentle and sweet and vulnerable and brave. He betrayed her and violated her, and the worst part is she doesn't think he even knows that's what he did. She doesn't think he knows the difference between right and wrong, between real and unreal, between love and violation, not anymore.

She doesn't understand what happened to him. Was Farouk right? Was David always this way and she just didn't see it? Was she blind, did she look at him and see only what she wanted to see? Or did something change him, turn him into this, into just another man who thinks he has the right to do whatever he wants to everyone around him, even the ones he claims to love?

Did she ever know him at all?

Nausea hits her and she bends over the sink and tries to throw up, but there's nothing in her but bile. The dry heaves run their course, then she washes her face and mouth with cold water, her knees trembling.

She sits down on the cold tile, a stabbing pain in her chest as her heart rips open, the wound deep and angry. She cries, though she doesn't want to, because her grief is unbearable.

And then she pulls herself back together like she's always done. She stands and forces her legs to hold her steady. She washes her face again and looks at her reflection and promises herself that she's going to take back every inch of the control that's been taken from her. Her pain is her armor, it's how she survives. She wraps it around her wounded heart until the throbbing grief is dulled, contained.

As she reaches for the door, there's a knock from the other side. It's Clark.

"We have a situation."

§

When they reach Cary's lab, Amahl Farouk is standing there. Syd startles back and has to swallow her scream.

"What's he doing here?" she asks, bewildered by Clark and Cary's calm. She turns on Farouk. The inhibitor crown is gone, and he's healed and dressed in his suit. "Are you controlling them?"

"Not at all, my dear," Farouk says, with his salesman smile. She wants to punch it and shatter every single one of his perfectly even teeth. "I'm merely here to be of service."

Cary gives her an apologetic shrug, then looks to Clark to explain.

Clark sighs. "Division 3 has made an alliance with Amahl Farouk in order to deal with a greater threat."

"And what threat is that?" Syd asks, though she already knows.

There's a thin veneer of pity on Clark's face, but underneath there's determination, relief. "David."

"No," Syd says, shaking her head. "This is just another one of his tricks." She rounds on Farouk. "It's not going to work, not on me."

"The decision came from the top," Clark tells her. "Admiral Fukuyama's mind can't be controlled. It's not a trick. David is a danger to himself and others, and we need your help to stop him." He pauses, and then, with his typical brutal kindness, says, "We know what he did to you."

She goes still.

"I— I saw, when I was reviewing the sensor data from Le Désolé," Cary explains, knotting his fingers together in awkward apology. "He did something to your mind while you were unconscious."

"That's—" Syd begins, but doesn't finish. Can't finish.

"Concerning, yes," Clark says, making his own conclusion. "But it's only one piece of a very disturbing picture. We know the truth about the orb, where it came from, or rather when. We know that Cary makes it decades from now and you send it back."

"Not me," Syd says, because that wasn't her, the future her she saw cozying up with Farouk. But then maybe it is. Who is she now but her own dark future, cozying up with Farouk?

Clark puts on his pity again, but she doesn't believe it. She knows he's glad. She doesn't have to be a mind reader to know that Division 3 has always been scared of David Haller. They tried everything they could to kill him until he became too powerful to kill, and then they worked with him because they needed him to stop Farouk. And now...

"Farouk told us what he learned from you, in the future," Clark explains. "That David turns and once he does... This is our only chance to stop that future. To save the world from what he becomes."

"No," Syd says, shaking her head. "That's not fair. You're condemning him based on what? Farouk slaughtered your men, over and over. He killed Amy. He's a murderer, a liar, a monster."

Clark doesn't answer. Syd holds her head. She feels like she's losing her mind all over again.

"Syd," Cary says, taking a step towards her. "Even if it's just a chance... We're the ones who sent the orb back. We have to believe that we made the right decision, that this is our best shot at saving the lives of billions of people."

"So, what?" Syd challenges. "We're just gonna execute him?"

"Not if we don't have to," Cary says. He reaches for his work bench and picks up a crown similar to the one he'd placed on Farouk's head just hours ago. "I made another one, even stronger, with, uh, Farouk's help. We just need to get it on David's head. Then we can give him the help he needs."

"He'll never let you," Syd says. Not the way he is now.

"If he refuses treatment, then we will have to execute him," Clark says, and it's an honest fact.

Syd turns around and walks away from them, just far enough to get some space. She can't believe this is happening. She needs time to figure this out, but they don't have any time. As soon as he thinks to check, David will read their minds and then—

He's sick. Oh god, he really is sick. What he did to her, the way he's been since he came back, the thing he might become. He's sick and he needs their help.

"Okay," she says, dully.

"With your permission," Farouk oozes, "I will protect your minds so that he will not suspect. You will have to act quickly."

§

"David," Clark says, beckoning him to the center of the room. "Over here."

As David enters the courtroom, her instinct is to warn him, to give him the chance to get better on his own terms. But as he saunters over to Clark, she accepts that she made the right decision. Looking at him now, from a distance, she sees how much he's changed. He isn't himself. He's arrogant and smug and cocky.

"Just want to thank you," Clark continues, playing along. "You saved us all."

"That's what I do," David says, taking the praise like it's his due. "Where's Farouk?"

"They're bringing him in now. Let me just— I have a few questions before we get started. Let me just grab my pad." Clark walks clear as casually as he can.

"Yeah, okay," Syd whispers, giving the signal.

When Cary triggers the cage, she allows herself a moment of satisfaction, seeing David caught, knowing he'll be punished. But then she just hurts again, because once he's scared all she can see is her David. He bounces off the cage wall, whirls in confusion, starts trying to break free.

And then Farouk slithers in like the snake he is.

The moment David sees Farouk, Syd realizes their mistake. David's never going to trust them while Farouk is in the room. David starts pouring everything he has at the cage, desperate to escape and go after his enemy, his parasite, the thing that's tortured him his entire life. The smiling monster she has to work with because David might turn into a monster so big he'll kill the world.

It's not going to work. She has to try anyway.

"David, stop, please," she begs, trying to calm him. "I know that you don't want to believe me, but we want to help you."

David isn't listening. He only has eyes for Farouk. "Let me out! Now!"

"David Haller, your treachery has been discovered," declares a Vermillion. "The inevitability of your future crimes."

"We are informed by Sydney Barrett and the Shadow King of events that will transpire in the days to come," continues another. "The remains of the orb that took you have been analyzed. The probability that they have been created decades from now by the male Loudermilk is 98%."

David turns to Cary, betrayed. Cary shrugs; what could he say?

"This is a mistake," David says, looking around the room, angry, pleading for sense. "Future crimes? Things I might do? Are you—" He cuts himself off, shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. "Wait. What's— what's really going on?" And then, predictably, he focuses back on Farouk again. "This is you," he growls.

Farouk says something in another language. His voice is calm with mock sadness. "Seeing you like this, what you have become. The sweet boy undone by revenge. It fills my heart with such sorrow."

"Liar," David snarls.

As Farouk takes his seat, Syd knows that if they have any hope of pulling this off, it's up to her to find a way past David's anger and reach him. Despite what he did to her, despite her future self's warnings, she doesn't believe he's lost to her, not yet.

"David, I know how hard this was for you. What he did to you. The life that you lived." She stands up and approaches the cage, needing to say this to his face, to let him see how much she means it. "To think that you were sick for all those years, and then to be told that it was a lie, that you have these powers. This monster in your head, everything Melanie said, that you weren't mentally ill, when the truth is—"

"Syd," David pleads, begging her not to say it.

"You're both," she finishes. 

The truth hits him like a gut punch. He reels, eyes darting in every direction. And then he suddenly lashes out at her with an accusing finger. "No! Shut up and let me think!" And then, calmer, dazed. "Just let me think." He presses a hand to his head, groans. "Something I do in the future? That hasn't happened yet? That isn't even me?" He laughs darkly. "Don't you see? This is some kind of mass psychosis."

"You're upset," Cary says, gently denying him. "Your mind can't reconcile the person we see with the person you think you are."

"But we can help," Syd insists. "Medicine and therapy." 

David stares in wide-eyed devastation. "Back to the psych ward? David the zombie." She thinks for a moment that maybe this will work after all, that maybe the truth is getting through to him. But then he riles. "Well, bullshit! You want me gone so bad? Fine, I'm gone."

"No," Syd pleads.

"You will allow treatment, or we will be forced to terminate," declares a Vermillion, and that makes everything worse.

"You're gonna kill me?" David says, outraged. "No. No." He rounds on Syd, stares her down. "I want to hear you say it. That you're gonna kill me if I don't let them turn me into something different. Something easy. Something clean."

This is it. Her last shot at reaching him, at reaching the David she loves, or used to love, if he was ever there at all. She walks right up to the cage, as close as she can. "David," she begins, and every word is wrenched out of her with agonizing pain. "You drugged me and had sex with me."

She watches the truth sink in, a slow-motion disaster that she started and can't afford to stop. "No, that's not—" And she was right, of course she was right. He didn't know that he'd hurt her, he didn't know what he'd done.

He knows now.

Her David would have apologized. He would have been horrified, disgusted at what he'd done. But the David in front of her just wails like a lost child. "I need you," he whispers, like her pain is nothing, like only his pain matters. Like a boy loves his mommy or a dog loves a bone.

Maybe Farouk was right. Maybe her future self was right all along. Maybe he's always been a monster. He's a monster now.

"I'm a good person," David says, starts chanting the affirmation as he turns and turns, looking around the room trying to find someone who will believe him. "I deserve love. I'm a good person. I deserve love. I deserve love."

No one believes him. There's no one, and he's so, so lost.

And then suddenly he's angry. Focused. Controlled.

"You know what? I'm done," he declares. "You had your chance."

"No," Syd pleads, but it's too late. She failed. She backs away as David powers up again, as the cage strains to hold him.

"Cary," Syd calls.

"The gas." A Vermillion gives the order and the cage starts filling up. David waves it away, but it keeps pouring in, filling up the small space.

"Cary?" Syd asks, as she stands back with him.

"The field should hold," Cary says.

Syd's not so sure, because David's giving this everything he has. But for all his power he still needs to breathe, and as fast as he waves it away, the gas creeps up to fill the cage. And then she can't even see him through the haze.

The cage goes quiet. Syd looks to Cary, to Clark. 

"Give it a minute," Clark says, holding up a hand. "It takes a lot to knock him out."

They wait but nothing happens. Did he teleport out when they couldn't see him? Is he waiting for them to drop the walls so he can attack? Clark gives the signal, and Syd waits, holding her breath as the walls drop, as the gas dissipates.

David is lying unconscious on the floor.

"The crown, now!" Clark orders, and Cary rushes in to put it on. David whimpers when it activates, body straining as the neural spines dig into his head, and then he goes limp again.

They have him now, for all the good it will do them.

"Take him," Clark orders.

Several soldiers haul David up and put him into a wheelchair. His head lolls back, and Syd takes a sharp breath in. She remembers David the zombie. She knows why he's afraid of this, after Clockworks, after so many years of misguided treatment that only made his life a misery. She's afraid for him, too. But this is the only way to help him, to stop him from doing things that he would regret if he was still able to regret doing them.

As they wheel David away, a Vermillion speaks. "Amahl Farouk, Shadow King. Your cooperation in this is now complete."

Farouk bows his head in acknowledgement. "Then I am free to go?"

"No," says another Vermillion. "Your services are required for another task. You must remain here until David Haller is neutralized or destroyed. There is a sixty-two percent chance that he will make an additional attempt to escape."

Farouk grins widely. "Then you wish me to be his jailer? It would be my honor, Admiral."

"Sixty-two percent?" Cary mutters. "Seems low after all that."

Syd wonders, but she's more concerned about Farouk. "I'm sorry, no," she insists. "We can't help David if he's involved. You saw what happened. David won't trust us if we're working with him."

"You're not," Clark says, all his conciliatory gestures gone now that he has David where he wants him. "He's working for Division 3. You also happen to be working for Division 3. It's your job to make sure that he doesn't have to do his job. Those were the terms you agreed to. If you have a problem with that, you can leave. We'll deal with David our way."

Syd stares at Clark, and he stares right back at her. "Fine," she says, not liking any of this at all. It's cure or kill, and she doesn't know if there's any hope of curing whatever's wrong with David. But she has to try. She's the only hope he has left, whether he realizes it or not.

"My dear," Farouk says, magnanimous in his victory. "Let us not start our new relationship on bad terms. Please, join me for a coffee." He gestures towards the door. "We are allies now. We must be civilized."

The last thing she wants to do is sit across from the monster that gleefully tortured David his entire life. But the actual last thing she wants to do right now is a tie between going down to David's new cell and waiting for him to wake up, and going back to her room to sit alone and feel absolutely miserable for doing the right thing. 

"Fine," she says, and walks out, not looking back to see if Farouk is following.

§

Farouk almost moans as he takes his first sip of coffee. He ordered a café serré, a short shot of espresso so concentrated one sip would keep anyone else awake for days.

Syd ordered a shot too. Whiskey, despite the early hour, because she can't deal with any of this completely sober. She only takes one sip, though, because she can't risk being anything other than completely sober when she's sitting across the table from a monster. She'll get drunk tonight, safe in the privacy of her room.

Not that anywhere is safe anymore. Not that her room was safe last night. Maybe if she'd been sober when David came to her, she would have had the sense to say no.

"You cannot blame yourself," Farouk tells her.

"I'm sorry?" Syd says, glaring at him. 

"I apologize," Farouk says, holding up a hand. "It’s impossible not to hear such loud thoughts."

"Well, _try_ ," she says, and resists the urge to throw back the whole shot of whiskey.

"It’s the truth," Farouk says. 

He's still wearing those sunglasses, so she can't see his eyes, but she knows it wouldn't make any difference to see them. There is nothing about him that she will ever trust.

Farouk puts his hand over his heart. "You wound me, my dear. I’m only trying to do what is best for the world, as I always have."

Syd scoffs. "I'm sorry, when have you done anything for anyone but yourself?"

"I was a great king," Farouk declares. "My people thrived under my protection."

"I read Division 3's file on you," Syd says, unmoved. "You were a criminal before David's father stopped you. Your people were criminals. You hurt innocent people then the same way you hurt them now. You might have fooled me once, but—"

"Twice," Farouk smirks, and takes another tiny sip.

Syd's nostrils flare as she breathes in sharply. "I never believed your fantasy Clockworks was real."

"No," Farouk says. "But you believed your David was."

Nausea roils through her. 

"That is when he changed, is it not? When you took me out of him with a kiss?" He chuckles. "I was the gift, remember? _Le don._ You should never have tried to take him away from me."

"Shut up," she whispers, but god, god, what if it's true? The timing, it makes sense, what if—

"What he did to you last night. It was truly sickening to see him hurt you so. He tried to trick you into loving him. But that is his nature, you understand? He is empty, a shell full of power. There is nothing to save."

"Shut up," she says again, louder this time. "I know what you're doing and it's not going to work."

"Then you still love him? Your David? You will let him back into your head, your heart, your body, after he has violated them?"

"He needs help," Syd says, wrapping her pain tighter and tighter around her heart.

"Perhaps," Farouk says. "Perhaps it is my help that he needs. I have guarded him all his life, saved him from himself. A little boy with too much power. Can you imagine the devastation? One tantrum and he wishes away his mother, his father, his country. I have always done what is best for the world."

Syd says nothing. She can't breathe.

Farouk takes another sip. "I would like to thank you, my dear. Not only for your noble efforts today, but for all you have already done for me in the future. Your assistance has been invaluable."

Everything hurts. Her soul hurts. She forces herself to breathe. "What do you want from us?"

"Right now? I only want to enjoy being back in my body, and to finish this delicious cup of coffee."

She can't take anymore. She stands up.

"Until next time," Farouk says, raising his cup to her as she turns and walks away.


	2. Day 1: To everything being completely fucked.

David’s head hurts. It really, really hurts, like someone’s stabbed needles into his skull. And if that wasn’t enough, he feels wrong, somehow, wrong all over and strange. There’s a bitter, familiar taste in his mouth that makes him think of swimming pools.

Swimming pools.

Division 3.

His eyes shoot open and he instantly regrets it. The room isn’t even very bright, but there’s long, cold-blue lines of light at the corners of the walls that stab right into his retinas. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to turn away, but there’s something holding his head still. He’s on a bed, and there’s something on his wrists, his ankles. 

Restraints.

Shit.

Everything comes back to him at once. The trial — no, the ambush. Farouk gloating, everyone on his side, and then Syd—

No. No. He can’t think about that right now. He has to get out of here. They’re going to kill him if he doesn’t get out of here. It should be easy to make the restraints open, but they don’t obey him. He tries to teleport away, but he doesn’t budge from the bed.

There’s something on his head. Shit.

“It’s not going to work.” 

David looks and sees himself leaning against the wall. He’s wearing a green shirt and looking dismayed.

“I’ve got this,” says another him, pacing on the other side of room. That him is wearing yellow.

“I don’t think you do,” says Green.

“Gimme time,” Yellow says. “I just need to bust this stupid thing and get it off our head. That’s obviously what that shit beetle did.”

“Obviously,” says Green, dryly. Then he looks at David. “Finally back with us?”

David tries to nod, but the motion sends a stabbing pain through his head. He breathes through it until it ebbs, but there’s a low, deep throbbing left behind. God, his head hurts.

From across the room, Yellow curses.

“Don’t do that again,” says Green, rubbing his own head. 

“Okay,” David says, keeping his head very still. 

He remembers the other hims from before, but he still doesn’t understand what they are. There’s always been voices in his head, usually lots of voices, but things have been mostly quiet since he got Farouk out of his head and learned how to control his powers. For all of two whole weeks, a few days more. That’s all the true freedom he’s ever known, and now—

Calm. He has to stay calm. 

He pretty sure they’re the source of the voices that he’s been talking to for those two weeks. It confused him, at first, but they've been helping him and he needs all the help he can get. He’s used to listening to other people talking in his head and he’s used to seeing things that aren’t there. He’s pretty sure that these other hims aren’t actually there, but neither was Lenny when she showed up in Amy’s basement. Sometimes if he keeps talking to things that aren’t real, they end up being real after all, and sometimes it’s the other way around. It’s hard for him to judge, so he usually just rolls with whatever’s happening.

He is not going to roll with lying here, gift-wrapped by Division 3 while Farouk waits for the right moment to kill him. He has to get out of here.

“We already tried,” says Green.

Yellow glowers. “I tried, you did nothing except lecture me.”

“I don’t tell you how to do your thing, you don’t tell me how to do mine.”

“Your thing is telling me what to do,” Yellow shoots back.

“And your thing is keeping us safe, which you have spectacularly failed to do.”

“Hey, don’t take this out on me. He’s the one who didn’t stick to the plan.” Yellow smirks. “He just had to stick his wick in that blonde—“

“Hey!” David calls, angrily. “Shut up!”

“What?” Kerry appears from somewhere past his feet. 

“What?” David asks. She must have been sitting by the door this whole time. 

“I wasn’t saying anything.”

“Right,” David says. 

Kerry frowns at him. “Then who did you just yell at?”

She’s a very straightforward person, Kerry. He’s always liked that about her. So he’s straightforward back. “Myself?”

Kerry considers this, then accepts it. “Good. I wanna yell at you, too. But Cary says you’re sick so I can’t.”

“I’m not—“ David starts to say what he’s desperately wanted to believe for the past month, ever since Melanie told it to him with such absolute confidence. But the last word dies in his throat. 

This— This whole situation he’s in. It’s not good. 

“You are,” says Green, standing next to Kerry and looking disappointed in him. Green sighs and rubs his face in a familiar gesture David’s made himself a million times. “Maybe this is for the best. Running away wasn’t the answer.”

“You told me to leave,” David mutters. 

“What?” Kerry says again. She looks around the room, baffled. 

“Myself,” David explains. “I told myself to leave. And now I’m telling myself to stay, which really doesn’t make any sense because if I don’t get out of here they’re going to kill me!”

By the end of it he’s worked himself up and he can feel his panic kicking in. God, he hates this, he hates this, he has to get out of here before it’s too late. He’s breathing too fast and pulling at the restraints but with this thing on his head he’s powerless, just a man, just a patient strapped to his bed the way he’s been strapped to beds in hospital after hospital after hospital after—

He moves his head and it hurts: agonizing, searing pain but he has to get it off, _he has to get it off_ , and he moves his head again, trying to push the crown against the bed and wrench himself free. The pain doesn’t matter, he’s used to pain, his whole life is pain, and he’s not going to have any more life if he doesn’t get it off now now _now now now_ —

“David, stop!” Kerry shouts, grabbing his head. Her eyes are wide with fear. Through the haze of agony, he thinks that he’s never seen her afraid about anything before. 

“If you force the crown off, it’ll kill you,” Kerry says. She shows him that her hands are smeared with his blood. “Cary said it’s hooked into your brain. So don’t, okay?”

“I have to,” he says, but even that small attempt took everything out of him. His whole body is reeling. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” says Yellow, holding his own head and grimacing.

“This isn’t the answer,” Green says, doing the same. 

It seems whatever hurts David hurts the other hims, which is satisfying in a twisted way. If he has to suffer, at least he's not suffering alone. Not that the other hims are anything but persistent hallucinations. Friendly hallucinations, but they can't really help him because they're not real. They can't get him out of this. They might even be a symptom of whatever's wrong with him. Why he's sick.

He's sick.

"Finally," sighs Green. Yellow scowls at him.

Kerry washes her hands in the sink, then comes back with handful of damp paper towels and starts wiping away the blood.

"Please," he begs her. If she cares about him at all anymore — and she must or she wouldn't be down here taking care of him — then she has to understand. "Please, you have to help me. Get this thing off my head, please, please. I don't want to die."

"The whole point of this is so you don't die, stupid," Kerry says, giving him a rough swipe with the towel. "That's why we're helping you. Me and Cary and Syd. We're doing this so you don't die, so stop being an asshole."

David can't— "Syd?" he asks, weakly.

"Yeah," Kerry says, gruffly. "I don't understand what you did to her but it sucks. You're not supposed to hurt the people you love, and if you do you're supposed to feel bad about it. I kicked Cary in the spleen but then I said I was sorry, even though it wasn't my fault." 

She wipes the drying blood from the side of his neck. The pillow is damp under his head but he doesn't think they'll remove the head restraint to let him get clean. It's probably fitting to make him lie in his own blood.

"You're right," he says, bleakly. He knows he's crashing now that the panic is over, but he can't stop himself. It doesn't just suck, what he did to her. It was monstrous. He's a monster, just like—

He warned her. When Syd wanted to see his memories, he warned her that she wouldn't love him anymore once she knew what he was, once she'd seen all the bad things he's done and all the ways he's ruined everything. But she kept staying and kept seeing something good in him, and he wanted so badly to believe that she was right.

But she wasn't. She wasn't.

Tears stream out of his eyes, streak down the sides of his face and into the stained pillow. Kerry pulls back, surprised. When she disappears from view, he thinks she's as disgusted with him as he is with himself. But she comes back with a clean towel and wipes his tears away as they fall, as they keep falling.

"Syd says you have to get better or you'll die," Kerry tells him. "So do it."

§

"Is there any change in his condition?" Clark asks.

Cary looks up from his monitor, startled out of his concentration. "Oh. I didn't hear you come in. And, uh, no, there's no change. Either of them."

Cary's lab has been turned into an impromptu infirmary, specially tailored for his two patients: his oldest and dearest friends, Oliver and Melanie Bird. Oliver he found himself, barely alive after David psychically tortured him. Melanie was recovered later, when Division 3 was sweeping through the labyrinth and found Farouk's empty coffin. Both of them are unconscious and frankly lucky to be breathing. Melanie especially; she's only human, and her body couldn't take the strain of Farouk's brief possession.

Technically, Cary has three patients. But he can't actually be in two places at once, so as long as David is a prisoner as well as a patient, he has to trust Kerry to look after him. He'll visit when he can, but after David's courtroom histrionics, he has to admit that he's a little afraid of what he's going to find.

Clark is standing over Oliver, looking thoughtful but otherwise unreadable. Clark is a difficult man for Cary to understand. They spent so long on opposing sides of a bloody war, and then just like that they were allies, their shared goals aligning them: finding David, finding Oliver and Farouk and his body. 

He's not sure if they're allies anymore, now that everyone's been found. 

"Oliver's strong," Cary assures him. "I do believe he'll recover. But the psychic trauma he endured was great."

"David's very powerful," Clark says, but it’s not a compliment.

"He thought he was torturing Farouk," Cary explains, as he's explained before. "He was tricked. It was a mistake."

"David makes a lot of mistakes."

Cary picks up a scanner, not because he needs to use it but because he needs something to look at that isn't Clark. "He does. But that doesn't make it right to condemn him for mistakes he might make in a future that might not happen."

"You gave your testimony," Clark reminds him. "You're going to make that orb one day because of what he does. Are you willing to risk the lives of billions of people?"

"No, no, of course not," Cary says, looking up. "It's just— I'm not comfortable with this."

"You don't have to be, because it's not up to you. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"David's only a threat because of his abilities. If he was just a mentally ill man, Division 3 would be happy to let him go. He would be free to do anything he wants."

"What you're asking is impossible," Cary says, straightening his spine. "And not only impossible, but immoral."

"I just want to keep people safe," Clark says, calmly.

"You want a cure for mutations. You want to genetically rewrite us out of existence. I'm sure all the world governments paying your salary would prefer that to having to hunt us down and execute us one by one."

Clark quirks a smile. "Sometimes I forget how long your memory is."

"Maybe it's just that I'm the only one left who remembers," Cary cuts back. "Everyone else is unconscious or dead, mostly because Division 3 killed them."

Clark holds up his hands in surrender. "Forget I asked."

"I won't," Cary mutters, but lets it go. He has more important thing to focus on, like helping his friends. He goes to Melanie and checks her vitals, compares them to the last check. She's stable, at least, but he can't guess beyond that. She could wake up in an hour or she could never wake up at all. There's no way for him to know what kind of damage Farouk did to her mind.

"He was devastated, you know," Cary says, still feeling like this whole situation is unjust. "David. When he realized what Farouk made him do. I don't believe that he's some kind of unfeeling monster."

"And how long have you known David? All of you? Four, five weeks?"

Cary scowls.

"You think I don't want him to get better?" Clark says, not letting this go. "I like David, I do. But it doesn't matter if he feels bad. He's unstable and he's always been unstable. We don't know what happened in that future that made him end the world. Maybe it was all a big accident. If there's a nuclear reactor that's gonna blow, you don't forgive the reactor. You take it out of commission."

"He's a human being, not a nuclear reactor."

"He's not a human being, he's a mutant."

They stare at each other.

"Get out of my lab," Cary says, quietly livid.

"I'll go," Clark agrees. "But I'll be back. You think this is your lab? Everything here is the property of Division 3. And as long as you're working for us, so are you." He starts towards the door, then turns back. "Here's the thing. Every single day, I look in the mirror and I see what David did to me, what your people did to me. But I put it all aside because what we're doing here is important. We're protecting the world."

"By allying with sadistic monsters like Farouk?" Cary retorts. "Like Walter?"

"That was always the problem with you Summerlanders," Clark says, shaking his head. "You think society is about right and wrong, or who's on whose side. Society isn't about sides. It's about power and who has the most of it. Either you deal with David or we will, and when that's done we'll deal with Farouk."

Clark limps out of the lab, his cane tapping aggressively loudly. But he closes the door quietly behind him.

§

It's a bad idea, but Syd goes back to her room and starts drinking and doesn't stop. Really, getting drunk is the least bad idea in an entire forest of bad ideas.

She gets very, very drunk.

"A toast," she says, raising her glass to no one. "To everything being completely fucked."

She knocks back the shot. Wow, she is super drunk right now. This is just the level of drunk she has to be to do something stupid, which is why she takes what's left of the bottle and stumbles her way out into the hall.

"Shit," she slurs, as the hallway lists alarmingly to the left. She leans against the wall until the building rights itself again. 

What was she going to do again? She's not going to see David. David the empty shell. David the illusion. There's nothing there to see, right? If she believes the King of Lies, lying to her face, pouring poison into her ear.

Amahl Farouk is the worst. The _worst_. Syd has known some real pieces of shit, but he is the biggest, stinkiest shit of all goddamn time. He is the living embodiment of diarrhea, including the way he can't ever stop running his goddamn shitty mouth.

"Fuck you!" she shouts at him, because she knows he's listening. She knows he's loving this, watching her suffer because he stomped all over her broken heart. Fuck him. Fuck him!

Ugh, where was she going? Oh right, not to see David.

Because here's the thing. Here's the sticking point. The Shadow King is an absolute sadistic lying bastard, but his biggest weapon is the truth. Not the whole truth, just bits of it. Enough to bait his victims with a fuzzy rabbit on a hook. And then the hook is in deep and it's dragging you down a hole and through an underground labyrinth until nothing makes sense except the story he's telling you with someone else's face.

Farouk was in David's head for thirty years, for his whole entire life. What she doesn't understand is how there can be anything left of him after that. How can there be a David at all? How could he survive it?

Syd's life was never great. She's never belonged anywhere because she was different, because her mom was different. She's hurt people: emotionally, physically, sexually. She got shoved into a mental hospital because some asshole judge decided she was a danger to herself and others. David thinks she saved him, but that's never been her truth.

The thing she loved about him was the same thing that drove her crazy: his blind, stupid optimism that everything would be okay. That there was good in the world and that they deserved to have some of it.

The world is shit. It's a shitty, shitty world, a world full of sadistic monsters that always get their way. A world where victims are just shoved out of sight because that's easier for everyone. That's what happened to her. She got shoved out of sight, but David saw her. David loved her. He would have done anything for her, no questions asked, like some gallant fucking knight.

But he wouldn't save the world for her. He chose revenge over her. That's why she's not going to see him. If he'd just saved the goddamn world—

She takes another sip and stumbles down the hall.

Thirty years. She can't stand being on the same continent as Farouk for more than thirty seconds. She's not surprised that David's broken, that he's sick, that he's a confused mess most of the time. She's surprised that he survived. She's surprised that he's sweet and gentle and respectful and empathetic and capable of making someone feel as loved as he made her feel.

Farouk is good, but he's not that good. That snake wouldn't know real love if it clubbed him across the face. Though she would have no objections to testing that theory with an actual club.

There's a big door in the wall, and buttons. She presses one. It's the elevator and it starts going down and takes her with it.

She's not going to see David because he's the fuzzy bunny wiggling on the hook. Who wouldn't want to save a fuzzy bunny? But she knows. She knows how this works. She's not taking the bait this time. She's not rushing over to David so she can drive herself crazy trying to figure out if David is even David anymore, or if David was ever David at all.

No. She's going to talk to Amy. Lenny. Lemmy. Lamy. She snort-laughs as she staggers up to the cell door. 

"Laaaamy," Syd calls, and laughs again, because it's just that fucking hilarious. Or because she's toxically drunk. Probably that.

She fumbles open the door and staggers through, nearly getting pulled along with it as it swings around. "Whoops," she says, careful not to drop the bottle. It's very important that she not drop the bottle.

"Whiskey, nice," Lenny says. She's sitting on the bed, still wrapped in chains. "Gonna share?"

"You know," Syd says, pointing at her. "I don't think Division 3 follows the Geneva Conventions."

"Sister, you read my mind. This place is basically evil. You here to bust me out before they make me fry?"

"Nope," Syd says, making sure to pronounce the whole word. "But you can have a drink." She staggers until she reaches the bed, then leans over Lenny and puts the bottle to her mouth. Lenny's eyes go wide but she takes the mouthful Syd pours. Syd takes the bottle back and has another sip.

"You really know how to show a girl a good time," Lenny declares. 

"I'll show you a good time," Syd leers, wagging the bottle like a fuzzy bunny. "But first I gotta talk to Amy."

"Ah. See, that's gonna be a problem, because Amy's not home anymore."

Syd snorts. "Please. Don't give me that. I know how this works. That shithead's not gonna throw away something he can use to torture us. He uses every. Part. Of. The. Cow." She punctuates each word by poking Lenny with her finger.

"Gimme another drink first," Lenny says, resigned.

Syd obliges.

This time Lenny sputters and coughs. "I said a drink, not a waterboarding. Shit, you are a sloppy drunk, girl."

"Amy," Syd demands.

"It doesn't work like that," Lenny protests. "I can't just dial her up. She, like, comes to me in dreams and shit."

"Amy," Syd calls. "If you don't come out, Farouk's gonna kill David."

Lenny startles. "Okay, that worked."

Syd looks around, but she doesn't see anything. "Where is she?"

"She's in my head, not yours." Lenny rolls her eyes. "She wants to know what she can do to help."

"I wanna know how you did it," Syd says. "How did you keep David David?"

Lenny looks confused, and based on the look she gives to thin air, so does Amy.

"Farouk said he's empty. An illusion. That he's not even— he's not even capable of love." Syd starts choking up, so she takes another sip. She can't deal with this even a hundred miles from sober.

"Amy says that's bullshit," Lenny says, and means it. "And so do I."

"How would you know?" Syd retorts. "You're not even a real person."

"Hey, whatever I am, I was in his head while you two were mooning over each other all over Summerland. I know for a fact that he was stupid in love with you. It made Farouk want to throw up."

"How much?" Syd demands.

Lenny's eyes dart back and forth. "Which how much?"

"Both."

"Like, carve out his own heart and eat it much. For both."

It's possibly the least romantic image she could imagine, but for the first time in days the dread in Syd's gut actually lessens. Down from a hundred percent to ninety percent, but she'll take it.

"Okay," she says, breathing for what feels like the first time. "Okay. So ask Amy how she did it. How did she keep him going?"

"Ask her yourself," Lenny grumbles, then listens to nothing. "Amy says she didn't."

"She— You must have," Syd insists. "He was tortured his entire life. Thirty years. Who survives that?"

Lenny frowns. Whatever she hears must not be happy. "Yeah, he was. And he was a juvie and a junkie and he tried to kill himself. That ain't surviving."

"So, what?" Syd realizes belatedly that it would have been more helpful to have this conversation sober. But if she was sober she couldn't have had it at all. "He gave up?"

"Amy says she did everything she could for him. But yeah. He gave up." Lenny mimes hanging herself. "Game over."

"Shit." That wasn't what she was hoping to hear.

"He was in bad shape when they dumped him at Clockworks." Lenny gives an exasperated look at thin air. "Don't make it pretty. That place wasn't a hospital, it was a landfill. Anyway, yeah, he was done. The turkey popped. He was still walking around and breathing but that was about it. And then, well."

"And then me." She's not sure how that makes her feel. She's not sure what she should feel. She saw some of his memories, she saw the kind of person he used to be. She knew about his suicide attempt. But it was so hard to see any of that in the David she loved. He was fragile, she saw that, she saw his pain. But he didn't let it eat him whole.

Maybe she really did see what she wanted to see. Maybe Farouk was telling the truth and her David was an invention. It was just that David made it up himself and Farouk had nothing to do with it. David wanted to be a good person for her, he wanted to be everything he'd lost to his pain. So he made himself sweet and gentle and clung to that optimism as hard as he could, because it was the only thing keeping him from giving up all over again.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. She'd talked to Amy a lot over the year David was missing. She heard all her stories about him. When he was a boy, he really was all those things. And then Farouk took them away, took and took until David was empty. And then David tried to kill himself.

"Jesus," Syd says, the bottle falling from her hand. It doesn't break, but rolls across the floor, sloshing until it clacks against the wall and stops. “That’s the rabbit.”

“Huh?”

She’d almost taken the bait. She had her eyes wide open and she still reached for that rabbit, determined to free it. And if she had? Oh god, if she had. There would have been nothing left between David and Farouk, nothing to stop the real monster from eating David whole all over again.

“Thank you,” she says, numbly. She staggers to her feet, picks up the bottle and puts it in Lenny’s cuffed hands. “Both of you. Thank you.”

Syd has to get some sleep and sober up. She has to save love if she’s going to save the world.


	3. Day 1: Even his own hallucination thinks he's sick.

There's not much David can do while he's strapped to a bed with needles in his brain. He can barely move and can't use his powers, and frankly even thinking is hard when his head is throbbing like a drum. But thinking is what he has to do.

He's supposed to get better, but he doesn't know what that means. He doesn't even know what it means that he's sick. They all said he was, Syd and Cary and Kerry and Clark and the Admiral, and even his own hallucination thinks he's sick. So he must be. He must be, because that's the thing about being sick. The sickness tells you you're healthy, that nothing's wrong, that everything is fine just the way it is. But everything isn't fine. It's not even in the same galaxy as fine.

Everything's gone wrong but he doesn't understand how it happened, how it all slipped through his fingers like water. For one blissful moment, he was happy, he was free, he was in love. And then he had a mission, a purpose, for the first time in his life. He had to stop Farouk, stop the bad guy. People were relying on him to protect them. He was their hero. But he had to help Farouk, too, apparently so Farouk could kill him before he destroyed the world. Because he's the villain.

He doesn't understand. None of it makes sense, but it makes sense to everyone else. Enough that they're ready to kill him if he doesn't get better, whatever getting better even means.

Something is wrong with him, though. He knows that something is wrong with him because he hurt Syd. He would never hurt her, not like— Not like—

But he did. Oh god, he did. He drugged her — altered her mind so she wouldn't stop loving him — and then he had sex with her. That is an actual thing he did to the woman he loves, and he didn't even know it was wrong until it was too late. That's what's sick.

Maybe they shouldn't be bothering to try to help him. Maybe there's no point, if this is what he is now. They should just execute him and get it over with instead of trying to save what can't be saved. If he doesn't even know when he's hurting people, how can he stop himself from doing it again?

"Kerry?" David calls, and she comes over from her guard post by the door. He's not sure what she's supposed to do to protect him. If Farouk shows up there's nothing anyone can do to stop him. But he's glad to have her company.

She sits down in the chair next to the bed. "Hey. Do you need some more water? Or, you know, the other thing?"

David flushes with fresh humiliation. Apparently he can't even be trusted with his own hands so he can piss. "No," he says, wishing he could turn his face away. But he's lost the right to any human kindness. He's not a person anymore, just a patient, a prisoner justly condemned. Or justly enough, anyway. 

"Oh, good," Kerry says, visibly relieved. "That was really gross."

He laughs, dry and bleak and mostly at himself. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Kerry shrugs. "Cary keeps telling me I need to get used to body stuff. Maybe it's good to practice on someone else."

David gives a soft assent, but that's all.

"So what do you want?" Kerry asks.

It's such an enormous question that David can't even begin to answer it. But of course that's not how she meant it. "Why are you here? Helping me?"

"Because Cary told me to."

David prays for strength. Kerry's literalness can be a bit much for him sometimes. "You don't have to."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No," David says. "But... If you're not comfortable. Being around me. Helping me. You don't have to."

"I'm not afraid of you," Kerry says, forcefully.

"I didn't—"

"You can't even stand up. Even Cary could beat you right now."

"That's n—"

"I'm the one keeping you safe from yourself. If I left you'd probably hurt yourself again."

"Well, maybe, but—"

"And we're the only friends you have left. If we leave, what's gonna happen to you?"

David waits a beat before he answers, in case she has more to say. But she's done. "Maybe that's why you should leave."

Kerry stares at him. "Are you kidding? You're giving up, just like that?"

"I'm n—" He is. Or he should. "I don't know. Apparently I end the world, so..."

"Then don't end it."

It's a breathtaking statement, perfect in its simplicity. But his life has never been simple. "What if I can't stop myself?" he asks her. "What if it's an accident, or someone makes me?"

"No one makes me do anything," Kerry boasts.

"Cary makes you do body stuff."

She huffs and crosses her arms. "That's different. And anyway I have to do body stuff because Cary's the one who goes inside me. Maybe he's the one who should stop doing body stuff because that's my thing now. I'm a body stuff expert."

David doesn't want to smile. He really doesn't. But he can't help himself. Kerry smiles back, and maybe it's just a moment, maybe it's meaningless when everything else about his situation is just as dire as before. But it makes him feel like he's a person again.

And of course, that's when the door opens and Clark comes in with a needle.

Kerry stands up and gets between them. "What's that for?" she challenges.

"Cary's busy, so I thought I'd check on our patient myself." Clark leans past Kerry. "I hear you've been a busy boy, talking to yourself, hurting yourself. Trying to get free."

"It's under control," Kerry says, not budging. "He's better now."

Clark smiles, but it's not pleasant. "I'm sorry, better? What was it you just said? If you left he'd probably hurt himself again?" He looks down at David. "And what was it you just said? 'Well, maybe?'" He shakes his head. "I told you, we're always listening."

Just the sight of the needle has already sent David's heart racing. "Please," he begs. "I don't need— The drugs, they don't help, please."

Kerry stares Clark down, but he stares her down right back. She looks away and he walks around her, sits down in the chair.

"I'm sorry," Clark says, like he means it. Maybe he does, but David begs him to stop and Clark doesn't stop. He cleans a spot on David's arm with a medical wipe.

The prick of the needle is intrusive and agonizingly familiar. The medication pushes into his veins, and David despairs.

"I'm sorry," Clark says again. He pulls out the needle and covers the tiny wound with a band-aid. "I can't have you interfering with this." He taps the crown once, just enough to make David wince. "I'm doing you a favor. This is the only thing keeping you alive."

Kerry curls her hands into fists. "We're the ones taking care of David, not you."

"This is an executive decision," Clark tells her. "If David can't control himself, the medication will."

"How's he supposed to get better if he's drugged all the time?"

Clark heads for the door. "Medication is part of his treatment. I checked his files, I'm sure he'll tolerate the dose just fine."

"I'm telling Cary!"

"Good, he can manage things from here." Clark gives her a meaningful look, then he's gone.

Calm. David has to stay calm.

Fuck, he's not calm, he's not calm at all. He starts panicking again because he's trapped in a literal nightmare and he can't wake up, and maybe brain damage is the only way out. He braces himself against the pain as he tries to push the crown off again, but Kerry holds his head still and he's helpless, he can't even kill himself, he can't— he can't—

The drug hits his system quickly, the woozy numbness as agonizingly familiar as the needle. 

"I'm sorry," Kerry says, and she's crying over him. He's never seen her cry over anything except Cary.

"It's— It's okay," David slurs. The panic is pulling far away from him, along with everything else. He hates the way panic makes him feel but at least it's his. He'd forgotten how the medication used to smother him, how much it steals.

"I'm gonna talk to Cary." She stands up and wipes her eyes. "You can't hurt yourself while I'm gone. If you do I'll be mad. Okay?"

"Okay," David says.

And then he's alone. But he's not alone, because his hallucinations are back.

"Happy now?" Yellow sneers, glaring furiously at Green. "Still think running away isn't the answer?"

Green's the one pacing now. "I don't know. I don't know, okay? This is bad."

"It wasn't bad before?" Yellow says, arms wide as if displaying the entirety of how thoroughly awful the situation is.

"Yes, it was," Green admits. "Are you going to blame me or are you going to help?”

“I never stopped helping. I told you, I’m gonna bust that stupid crown until it blows off our head.”

“That sounds safe,” Green grumbles. He sits down in the chair. “David. Listen to me. We’re not hallucinations.”

David blinks. “That’s what I’d expect a hallucination to say,” he slurs. That feels like it should make him laugh but it doesn’t. 

“I told you we should’ve told him sooner,” Yellow says. 

“Yes, you’re just full of good ideas,” Green mutters. “I didn’t want to scare him. He was dealing with enough already.”

“And now’s a vacation,” Yellow mutters back. 

Green glares and clenches his jaw. Then he visibly calms himself and turns back to David. “We’re part of you. A stress response. We protect you, or at least we try.”

“Like my rational mind,” David remembers. “He was nice.” 

“He was temporary,” Yellow says. “We’re not.”

“I don’t understand.” David was having trouble thinking before, but now it’s like pushing through wet cement. “You’re new.”

“Farouk made you forget,” Green explains. “He couldn’t get rid of us because we’re part of you, but he could keep you from recognizing us. He drowned us out with noise. Now our mind is our own.”

Yellow stands over him from the other side. “He couldn’t do shit because you didn't have to listen to his moralizing advice anymore.” Yellow puts a proud hand to his chest. “I’m all about action. If you get scared, I’m the one who saves us. That interrogation room, that fake Clockworks, those stupid memory walks? I saved us every time.” Yellow frowns. “I almost got us out of that courtroom, too.”

“Almost.” 

“No,” David says, refusing the whole thing. “No, that’s— This is a trick, another one of his tricks.”

Green sighs. “I knew you’d say that. David, we’ve been part of you for almost your whole life. That’s why it’s important that you listen to us. We know what’s best for you.”

“How can you know what's best for me if you don't even agree with each other?”

“He’s got a point,” Yellow says.

“Okay, _I_ know what’s best for you,” Green says. “If you’d been able to hear me you wouldn’t have been expelled from college. You wouldn’t have had a drug dealer for a best friend. You wouldn’t have ended up like this if you’d just listened to me and told everyone the truth before it all spiraled completely out of control!”

“Wow, frustrated much?” Yellow says, and sniggers.

David takes a moment. “You said you were permanent?” This really is a nightmare. “I’m insane,” he says, with what he feels is remarkable equanimity. This is what’s wrong with him. Maybe it’s a good thing Clark drugged him.

Yellow snorts. “Rude.” 

"Look," says Green. "We all want the same thing, to get out of here. I thought your friends would be able to help, but it's not looking great. So it's up to us now. We have to get you better right here, right now."

"That— that doesn't even make sense," David says.

"I know what your delusion is," Green says. "I told you before. Were you listening at all?"

David tries to remember the details, but the past two days have been... stressful. "Uh, something about not being a good person? God... doesn't love me?"

"I'm not listening to this." Yellow rolls his eyes and walks away. 

"Do you have any idea what got you into this mess?" Green asks. 

"Uh, no?"

Green rubs his face. "You weren't like this before, you know. This wide-eyed puppy act. You were a goddamn mess but you didn't delude yourself with fairy tales and stories about heroes and villains. You faced reality. You didn't want things we can't have."

"He was miserable," Yellow says, coming back again. "I was glad when Farouk shut us up because you made him feel worse about everything. We've been through enough bullshit without you telling him he deserved it."

"I didn't say he deserved it," Green says. "I said there's no point in hoping for things we're never going to get. We were never good and we sure as hell don't deserve love. We know what we are."

Yellow was cranky before, but now he's mad. "If you say things like that, you know what's gonna happen."

"We tried to stop him! Besides, that wasn't my fault, he couldn't even hear me."

"You think that mattered? All those years with you telling him what a useless piece of shit he was. Every time we did something wrong, you had to lecture him about it and rub salt in the wound. How did that work out for us, huh? How's that for protection?"

"And you telling him he's a god who can do anything he wants? Telling him to make Syd forget? ‘You have to say it, David,’” Green mocks, imitating Yellow’s words in the desert. “How did that work out for us?"

Silence. Blessed silence. If David's head wasn't already screaming they would be giving him a headache. "I don't think this is helping," he says.

"I'll tell you what your problem is," Yellow says, barrelling on. "You're afraid. You've always been afraid. You don't want us to have anything good because you're afraid of losing it. The more we love, the more it hurts, right? That's why you don't want us to have Syd."

"What, you're defending her now? 'The blonde thing who pretends to love us'?"

"She tried to kill us, she can rot in hell," Yellow says. "But the last thing he needs is to be realistic. You're just a— a moralizing pessimist."

"You're a delusional narcissist with a god complex.”

"Oh, everyone's deluded but you?"

"Maybe I'm afraid for a reason," Green says, standing up now. "What do you think happened these past two weeks? We finally had something good and Farouk took everything away, piece by piece. That's what he'll always do, and if it's not him, there'll be some other monster out there waiting for a victim like us. So yeah, I want David to stop hoping because maybe that way the monsters won't have anything to torture us with!"

David stares at the ceiling. Of course his "protective other selves" are just as traumatized as he is. Of course they are. "Maybe you two should go... wherever it is you go when I don't need protecting."

"That’s what you want, huh?" Green says, angrily. "Fine. We’re gone."

David stares at him. And then he really is alone.

§

Kerry runs as fast as she can, sprinting up the stairs because she's faster than the elevator, then down the hall to the lab.

"Cary," she calls, breathless. "Clark drugged David and he's really upset. We have to— uh— What's that thing doing here?"

There's a Vermillion in the lab, sitting on the third bed, the one Cary set aside for David to use once he's deemed safe enough to not be a prisoner anymore. Cary is standing in front of it, and he turns to greet her.

"Kerry, you'll never believe this," Cary says, waving her over like an excited puppy. 

Kerry approaches the Vermillion warily. She's never known what to make of the androids. They've always kinda creeped her out, and even though the thing with the eggs and the black creatures was a trick, it was really satisfying to kick the crap out of them. But the main reason she hates them now is because they're spies.

"Get the hell out," she tells it. She doesn't want it listening in when she's talking about David. Division 3's not giving him a chance to get better and it's not right.

"Kerry, don’t be rude,” Cary chides. “Well, go on, say something!”

The Vermillion stares at her and makes weird electrical noises. And then it says, “It’s good to see you, too,” with a familiar voice. 

“Ptonomy?” Kerry asks, cautiously. 

“Ptonomy!” Cary cries, and hugs her in celebration. “He’s alive! Well, sort of. His mind has been preserved in Admiral Fukuyama’s mainframe. Astonishing!”

Ptonomy's Vermillion is as blank-faced as the rest of them. "Weird," Kerry says, staring into its — his? — eyes. She snaps her fingers in front of its face. The Vermillion doesn't blink. No autonomic reflexes.

"I've reached an arrangement with Admiral Fukuyama," Ptonomy explains. "He's given me access to this Vermillion."

"And what are you doing in return?" Cary asks.

Ptonomy's Vermillion turns to stare at Cary. "I'm still on our side. Just because my body's dead, that doesn't mean I'm not a mutant."

"I apologize," Cary says.

"Why wouldn't Ptonomy be on our side?" Kerry asks. "What's going on?"

"Nothing yet," Cary says. "But the winds are shifting. I believe whatever happens to David will determine a great deal for all of us."

"Something's happening," Ptonomy says. His Vermillion pushes off the bed and marches over to a monitor. It stares at the monitor and then a video feed appears. It's David's cell.

“No. No, that’s— This is a trick, another one of his tricks,” David says, but there's no one else in the room.

"Who's he talking to?" Cary asks. "Could the crown be damaged? Or is someone reaching out to him?"

David doesn't say anything for a while, but he's listening, his eyes moving back and forth. And then: "How can you know what's best for me if you don't even agree with each other?”

"Two telepaths?" Cary wonders.

“You said you were permanent?” is the next thing David says, and he's upset. Then, with resignation: “I’m insane.” 

Kerry doesn't like the way this one-sided conversation is going. 

There's a bit more, but nothing that gives them any better sense of who David is talking to or how. And then David says, "You know, maybe you two should go... wherever it is you go when I don't need protecting." Then he's quiet and still.

"Huh," Ptonomy says, tilting the Vermillion's head.

"Interesting," Cary says. "Can we see what we missed?"

Ptonomy stares at the screen and the video rewinds. Kerry sees Clark giving David the shot and leaving. She sees herself in the room, holding David's head so he doesn't hurt himself. She sees herself crying, then running off to where she is now.

Almost the moment she leaves, David starts listening to something. Then he says, “That’s what I’d expect a hallucination to say." A long pause as he listens. "Like my rational mind. He was nice.” Then: “I don’t understand. You’re new.” And then they're back to the part they saw before. 

Cary has them watch it all through a few times. He frowns thoughtfully. "Kerry, you said he was talking to himself before."

"Uh, yeah," she says, feeling confused and unsettled and not liking it one bit. "I thought he was shouting at me but I wasn't saying anything so why would I need to shut up? He said he was yelling at himself. And then, um, then he said, 'I told myself to leave. Now I’m telling myself to stay.'"

"These visions seem to be trying to help him," Cary says, rubbing his chin. "Or at least he thinks they are."

"It could be Farouk," Ptonomy says. "More mind games."

"Possibly," Cary says. "But I don't think so. Can we see the live feed? What's he doing now?"

Kerry squints at the picture. David's eyes are closed, and his breathing is slow and even. "He's sleeping."

"Right." Cary taps his chin, looks up and thinks, then thinks some more. Usually when he gets like this, Kerry goes off and finds something to punch to keep herself busy. But she needs to know what's happening to David.

"What about the shot Clark gave him?" she asks. "Did that make him see things?"

"Unlikely," Cary says. "The last thing Clark wants to do is make David more unstable. No, that was just to sedate him. I think David's seen these 'hallucinations' before."

"I'll review the Admiral's archive," Ptonomy says. "Clark wasn't lying. Everything we've done here has been recorded. If there's evidence something was wrong before—"

"Yes, that footage may be just what we need," Cary agrees. "Can you leave this feed up? I need to keep a close eye on David but I have to stay here with Melanie and Oliver."

"I can go back and sit with him," Kerry offers. She doesn't like leaving David alone. If anyone tries to hurt him right now, there's nothing he can do to stop them. That's the worst feeling in the world.

"It's been a long day," Cary sighs. "For all of us. If David's resting, we should take the opportunity ourselves."

"I'll watch over him," Ptonomy promises. "I don't sleep anymore."

Cary turns to the Vermillion and puts his hand on its shoulder. "I can't express how good it is to have you back." He pulls the Vermillion into a hug, then releases it. "I'm sorry we couldn't save you. All of you."

"Being dead is a lot busier than I imagined," Ptonomy says, and if he still has a face somewhere he sounds like it's smiling. "I've got this. You two get some sleep. We'll find our answers tomorrow."

The Vermillion walks out, and Kerry waits, watching the monitor, until she sees it appear in David's room. It sits down in the chair next to the bed, perfectly poised and alert. She breathes out, the awful tightness in her stomach finally relieved because David has someone to protect him again.

She just hopes he has good dreams tonight. Anything's better than his reality.


	4. Day 2: The last thing I ever want to be.

It's hard for David to sleep while he's strapped to a bed with needles in his brain. But he's so incredibly tired, exhausted down to his bones. So he drifts in and out of consciousness, sometimes pushed down by the sedative and sometimes pulled up by the pain. 

The sedative keeps him calm, and it's a familiar, forced calm. There’s nothing he can do to escape it even though he hates it. It makes him feel like he did in Clockworks. It makes him feel like they're going to send him right back where he belongs. 

Clockworks never actually let him out in the first place. His freedom was stolen, an escape made under the false pretenses of a body swap. So maybe it's just the truth he's feeling. All of this, Summerland and Division 3, that's the dream, the nightmare. Soon he's going to wake up from all of it and he'll be back in those same walls, that same routine; the same questions asked over and over, the same medications forced on his body so it submits. He'll be just another cog, one tiny gear in the huge machinery of mental health, turned in circles until his mind or his body or both simply give out under the strain and he's thrown away.

Will it be worse this time, because he let himself believe he could have anything better? Or easier because he'll go back knowing it's exactly what he deserves?

Clark's right about him. He is a danger to himself and others, far more than he ever imagined. He'd thought that once Farouk was gone, he could finally have the normal life Amy wanted for him, or as close to normal as he could get as an incredibly powerful mutant. But his mental monsters are a hydra, and once one was cut out, two more sprang up in its place.

That's probably harsh. Green and Yellow aren't anything like Farouk. It's their existence that's the problem. If he can believe them, they've always been there, even though he didn't know at all. It's entirely likely that Farouk did make him forget them. Farouk made him forget so much, so much that if David really tries to remember the path of his life, all he finds are fragments, dead ends, roads cut off by lost bridges. Memories of things that aren't real, and real things twisted out of shape. And fear, so much unending, awful, suffocating fear.

Green said he'd changed, that he's a different person now than he used to be. But how could he ever be who he was before when there's nothing left of who he was but scraps? He spent years in Clockworks trying so hard to make himself a person again, sewing those scraps together with bits of cotton thread, and this ragged patchwork quilt is the best he could do. His clearest memories are from his childhood, when everything still felt new and full of wonder and hope. When he felt as safe and loved as he ever would, surrounded by calming nature, cared for by Amy and his parents and King. Even though his family wasn't his family, even though King wasn't real, he still remembers how much they loved him, and how much he loved them back.

None of that matters, now. How could it matter? All that hard work, and the truth is he failed. He rebuilt himself wrong. That's the only explanation for all of it. He thought he was building a man and instead he made a monster, and maybe that makes sense because he wasn't much better than a monster before. He wanted so much to blame all of it on Farouk: the drugs, the lies, all of it. But listening to Green, hearing the story of a life that he only knows in fragments, the cold hard truth settled in his gut like a stone.

He's always known what he is. His mistake was letting himself hope he could be someone better. Someone good and loved and worth loving.

Syd.

He's never going to see her again. Why would she ever want to, after what he did? 

His heart hurts so much. He doesn't want to feel it anymore.

"I told you," says Yellow's voice, a whisper in his mind. "Stop being so hard on him. He can't take it."

 _Go away,_ David pleads. He's so, so tired and everything hurts.

"David, I'm sorry," Green says, his usual attitude gone for once. "I didn't mean— It's not as bad as all that."

"Yeah, apologize to the puppy after you kicked it," Yellow grumbles.

"Do you wanna be right or do you wanna help?" Green asks.

"Both? Oh, fine, I'll gloat later. David, c'mon buddy."

"He's not actually a dog," Green mutters. 

Their voices are close now, like they're right next to him, but David doesn't open his eyes. He's still in the liminal space between waking and sleeping, the medication holding him level like water weights.

"Look, the whole 'wipe Syd's mind' thing," Yellow says. "That was totally my fault. Real shitty advice, right when you were super vulnerable from her trying to murder us. Okay? My fault, not yours. And did I mention that she fired an actual bullet at our head?"

"Maybe you shouldn't help."

"Okay, you try."

"David," Green says. "David, you're not a monster. Yeah, you screwed up, but... It was hard, okay? Watching him torture you for— He wouldn't let you hear me for so long. I got— I got angry. At you. But it's _his_ fault. It's always been his fault, this whole—" He sighs. "Please don't give up. Not again."

They're nice words, but they're just telling him what he wants to hear. It's not the truth. The truth is he's the one who messed with Syd's mind because he was afraid of losing her. The truth is he's the one who lied, who stole for drug money, who got into fights and hurt people and took and took from the people who loved him until there wasn't anyone left who'd ever love him again.

He's so tired of trying to get better, when he'll never get better. He just wants to sleep.

"Okay," Green says, gently. "Then sleep."

Something pushes him down, and sleep finally takes him.

§

David knows he's dreaming when he realizes nothing’s holding him, when he touches his head and there's nothing on it and all the pain is gone. He doesn't care that it can't be real, that everything awful is still waiting for him when he wakes up; if dreams are his only escape from the horror his life has become, he'll go as deep into dreams as he can.

It feels good to move again. He starts walking and the world resolves around him into path through a summer forest, all deep greens and sweet air and birdsong. He walks, just walks, breathing and feeling his body, feeling alive.

Maybe he should stay here. Maybe he should never go back. Would the other hims take his place? It would be hard for them to do a worse job of being him than he's done. He doesn't know if they're really whole people but he's not a whole person either. Green would finally be able to make all the right choices he's always wanted to make for them. Yellow wouldn't have to save him all the time.

If he's the one who ends the world, then the world is better off without him.

He walks until the path ends at a beach full of sand and rounded rocks, and he recognizes this place. It's where he and Amy and King used to play, building sand castles and splashing in the waves and throwing rocks into the water as far as they could. He would find a stick and throw it and King would always bring it back, his tail wagging with pure joy.

His whole life is a delusion. Nothing happened the way he remembers. But none of that matters in dreams.

He sits down on the shore in a meditation pose, just above the line of wet sand, and closes his eyes. The sun is warm and pleasant. He tastes the salt on the ocean breeze as it ripples through his clothes and hair and caresses his skin. The waves are steady and he lets his mind follow their sound back and forth, and he drifts, at peace.

He's not sure how long he stays this way. A long time, probably hours. But then he hears footsteps crunching in the rough sand, and he opens his eyes.

"No," he says, immediately closing them again.

"I'm just here to talk," says Farouk.

"Nope," David says, shaking his head. "Fuck off."

"I intended to visit you in person, or even in your mind, but your friends are very protective of you. This is the only place they've let you be alone."

"What, did Kerry scare you off?" David says, opening his eyes again to glare at Farouk. David can easily imagine Kerry standing up to Farouk and telling him to get the hell out, even though he could turn her to dust with a thought.

"It would have been a simple matter to freeze all of them in place so they could not interfere, but there's really no need for such dramatics."

Farouk creates a beach chair and unfolds it. He puts it on the sand, angled so he can see David and the water, and makes himself comfortable.

David grinds his teeth.

"Is there a reason you're here? Besides torturing me some more? Because you won, okay? There's nothing left. You got everything, hooray for you."

"Not everything," Farouk says, taking a sip from the drink that's suddenly in his hand.

David scoffs. "There's nothing left. Unless you're here to convince me to throw myself into the ocean."

"Why would I need to?" Farouk asks. "You have already convinced yourself. I am here to give you a reason to live."

It's such an utterly absurd statement that David can barely believe he heard it.

"This— This was what you wanted," David insists. "It's what all this was about. I got away and you couldn't stand it. You couldn't stand me being happy for five whole seconds out of my entire life."

"Not at all. I was expecting you to escape. To become a glorious sunrise. But instead you are _reduced_. Tied to a bed and drugged, your powers stolen from you. They make you suffer because they think that will purify you. When the truth is, you have suffered beyond what they can imagine, and that is what made you into the very thing they fear."

"No," David says, and gets up and walks away. "I am not having this conversation."

"So you truly are giving up?" Farouk calls after him.

"Yes," David calls back. "I've thought it all through and made a clear and rational decision to make the world a slightly less awful place by removing myself from it, okay? Now leave me alone."

He walks further down the beach, but Farouk is waiting for him when he gets there, still lounging in his chair with his drink. David glares at the sky, wondering what kind of history-book monster he must have been in a past life. Maybe Genghis Khan. How many people did he kill, forty million? That's probably not enough for him to deserve this.

"So how will you do it?" Farouk asks. "Will you hang yourself again? Your friends will try to stop you."

"I don't know," David says, staring at the ocean so he doesn't have to look at Farouk. "I'll think of something."

"Think of how terrible they will feel when they find your body. After they tried so hard to help you."

"They'll get over it."

Farouk takes a sip of his drink. "Very well. Then once you are gone, who will save them from me?"

David rounds on him. "Don't you dare. Don't you _dare_. You _asshole!_ Fuck you!"

"Ah, there is still a spark," Farouk says, grinning.

David kicks sand in his face. Farouk sputters and wipes the sand from his mouth.

"You're not gonna blackmail me out of killing myself!" David yells. He's livid, absolutely livid.

Farouk waves the sand from his suit and freshens his drink. "I believe I just did."

David turns and stomps back down the beach. He's not surprised at all when he finds Farouk at the other end. 

"Fine. You're obviously not gonna leave me alone. So what do you want? You wanna turn me evil so I'll end the world? Fuck you. Kerry's right, that's stupid."

"Is it? You are already so convinced you are a terrible monster."

"I hurt people," David says, poking his own chest. "I hurt Syd."

"You are still at the kiddie table," Farouk says, flashing his teeth. "A god who thinks he is a child."

"What, you think I want to sit down and eat with you? You are the last thing I ever want to be. That's why I want to kill myself, because of everything you did to— I don't know, shape me in your image. You said I was, what, your baby? That you tried to make me love you? You lived in my head and sucked me dry and tortured me. That's not love. No matter what you do to mess me up, that will never be love.”

If David didn't know better, he would swear that something he just said actually got under Farouk's skin. But Farouk's skin is thicker than rhino hide, so he doubts it.

"Good," Farouk says, standing up from his chair. He clenches his fist and the drink is gone. "The spark has become a fire. Now feed it."

David steps back, shaking his head. "Leave me alone."

"Do you think I won't do it?" Farouk challenges. "Do you think I will spare them because you are no longer there to witness their suffering? For thirty years I have tortured you, and your father has known none of it. I need no audience but my own victims."

Revulsion rises in David's gut. "I won't let you hurt them."

"Really? Will you play the hero from your hospital bed, crippled by your friends and your own self-loathing?"

"No, I—" David shakes his head. "I'm not a hero. Stop trying to make me a hero!"

"But what is a villain without a hero?" Farouk says, advancing for every step David retreats. "What is a monster without its prey? A torturer without a victim? The moon without the sun?"

"What, I'm your victim and I'm the sun?" David asks, still retreating. "You wanna talk about sick? You're sick. You are a literal sickness."

Something catches the back of David's foot, and he falls back on the sand. Farouk looms over him with a terrifying grin. "Then fight your sickness. And then we will see. Time to wake up."

Farouk steps on his chest and pushes down, and David screams as he's shoved down into the sand, into the earth, into darkness.

He wakes screaming and cries out in agony as his rough awakening jolts the crown. All the pain comes back at once, and tears spill from his eyes at the cruel futility of his life. He can't do this, he can't get dragged into another one of Farouk's torturous games. But there's no way out. He can't even kill himself without Farouk winning.

"David?" says a voice, electronic but familiar.

David blinks the tears from his eyes and looks over at the shape in the chair. It's a Vermillion. What the hell is a Vermillion doing here? Where's Kerry?

"David, it's me. Ptonomy."

"Oh!" David slumps as he remembers. "The mainframe. Right. Hi."

"Bad dream?"

"Uh, pretty bad."

"Wanna talk about it?"

David really, really doesn't. He wants to forget it ever happened. But keeping secrets about Farouk really didn't work so well for him the last time around. "Oh, just— Farouk, visiting my dreams to let me know if I kill myself he'll torture all my friends for decades."

The Vermillion tilts its head. "Is that a joke?"

"I really wish it was."

"So you were planning on killing yourself?"

"Yeah."

"That's a stupid plan," Ptonomy says, with as much feeling as can be conveyed from the speaker of an unemotional android. "I can't say I approve of his methods, but I'm glad he made you change your mind."

"I didn't change my mind," David grumbles, but it's half-hearted. "He blackmailed me. So I'm holding that particular stupid plan in reserve. For now."

Ptonomy goes quiet, and David wonders for a moment if he’s lost control of his Vermillion like he did in the cafeteria. But then he's back. 

He reaches down and opens all the restraints.

David stares, frozen, afraid to move in case this is some kind of test or trick. Is this Ptonomy at all? Is it Farouk pretending to be Ptonomy? Is he still dreaming? What's happening right now?

"David, it's okay," Ptonomy assures him. "The restraints were only because you kept trying to hurt yourself. You're not going to hurt yourself now, right?"

David carefully sits up. His whole body feels stiff and sore from being immobilized for so long. "No," he agrees, moving his arm and staring in wonder that he can move his arm. He carefully touches the crown. Whatever the trick is to getting it off, he doubts he can manage it with bare hands. Not without brain damage and likely death, which isn't really an option anymore.

"Are you sure this is okay?" David asks. The last thing he wants is Clark barrelling in with another round of sedative. He still feels fuzzy at the edges but he must have slept a good while if most of it has worn off.

"I got permission from the Admiral. It's okay."

"Wow. Um, thank you." David tries to stand up, but his legs are so shaky he nearly falls. 

"Take it easy," Ptonomy says. "You've had a rough time."

"Yeah," David says, and it's such a massive understatement that he might start crying again, or laughing, or both. He sits back down and rests his face in his hands and breathes.

"What do you want for breakfast?" Ptonomy asks. "Lemme guess, waffles?"

Well, yes, obviously, but— "Why are you—" David doesn't understand what's happening.

"David, I know what you've been through," Ptonomy says. "I know what Clockworks was like. This isn't Clockworks."

"No, but—"

"We're your friends. We want you to get better. This isn't a punishment, even if you tried to make it one."

"I didn't—" David rubs his face. "Why aren't you mad at me?"

"Should I be?"

"You're dead. Or not alive, I don't know. Because of me, because of Farouk. He sent that black thing that— You know. He hurt you because of me. That's what he's going to do to everyone if I—"

"If you kill yourself."

David swallows.

"I don't know what he did to you since that orb took you," Ptonomy says. "We're going to have long talk about that, and about other things. For now what's important is that we take care of you."

"I thought you were the memory guy, not the talk guy."

"I'm not really the memory guy anymore. Not like before. Besides, Melanie's still out of commission, so I'm what you've got."

"Melanie's alive?" It's the first David's heard of it. 

"And Oliver," Ptonomy says. "But they're still unconscious. We don't know if they'll wake up again."

"Oh." David's mood starts to crash again. God, he should have known Oliver was Oliver. He should have known something was wrong with Melanie. He should have helped her, not let her sink into a drugged stupor like the ones he sank himself into for years. He made such a terrible hero, it's no wonder it was so easy for everyone to believe he's doomed to be a villain.

The door opens, and two more Vermillions march in. 

"Fresh clothes and fresh waffles," Ptonomy says. One Vermillion puts down a stack of David's own clothes; no prisoner stripes, either black and white or orange and yellow. The other gives him a tray with a generous stack of steaming hot waffles. 

David hesitates, still feeling like he doesn't deserve any of it. But as the smell of the waffles hits him, he's suddenly ravenous. There's even syrup.

Fuck it, he's starving. He pours on the syrup and shoves almost half of the first waffle into his mouth, and god, he's never tasted anything as good as this, ever, in his whole life. He moans as he chews, and as the first bites hit his stomach, the oncoming wave of despair drops back into the sea and retreats.

Waffles really do make everything better.


	5. Day 2: Nothing about this is all right.

It's the second morning in a row that Syd has woken up and wanted to vomit, but this time she actually manages it. She makes it to the bathroom in time and kneels over the toilet until it's over.

She's probably lucky she didn't give herself alcohol poisoning last night, she drank so much. Her mouth tastes like something died in it. Her head is throbbing and her stomach hurts now that it's empty. She brushes her teeth three times and drinks two full glasses of water and regrets ever taking a liking to whiskey back when she was a stupid teenager and thought liking whiskey made her look intellectual.

God, she did a lot of stupid shit as a teenager.

She has to shower and put on some clean clothes and be functional. She has to get out there and start saving David from Farouk. She has to be the hero -- for real this time, not because of some vague story about the apocalypse and a broken orb. But the morning sun peeking in through the blinds seems to be actively trying to murder her brain. 

She just needs a minute. Just a minute and she'll save the world.

There's a knock on the door. She groans.

It's Clark, again. 

"Oh god, now what?" she moans, holding her head.

"Wow," Clark said, waving away the air. "How much did you drink last night?"

"Everything," Syd moans, and leans her face against the doorframe. The metal feels good against her forehead.

"Did it help?"

"Yes, actually. Please tell me you have good news."

Clark gives her a face. It's not the face she was hoping for.

"It's not as urgent as yesterday," he tells her. "We have a few minutes. Get cleaned up and I'll take you to Cary."

"Not again," Syd mumbles, but pushes off the frame and stumbles back to get ready.

She feels vaguely human once she's done, and when she looks in the bathroom mirror she supposes that it doesn't much matter if her eyes are shadowed and puffy. She's not going to get through the day without crying anyway. She might as well go into battle with her scars on display.

Clark hands her a cup of tea he made with her kettle and she sticks her face in the steam. 

"Thanks," she mumbles.

"You're gonna need the caffeine, trust me."

Clark didn't offer her caffeine and moral support yesterday. "Are you telling me this is worse than yesterday?"

Clark gives her another face. "It's not better. A lot's been happening while you were, ah— asleep."

"Jesus." Syd sips the tea. It burns her tongue and she winces.

"Interesting chat you had with Lenny, by the way. Good catch on the whole 'how did David survive' thing. But it's not gonna be much help."

Syd frowns but doesn't ask him to explain. She'll find out soon enough. "Does this place have any concept of privacy?"

"Nope. But that's probably for the best, given what we're dealing with now."

As they approach the lab, Syd says, "Please tell me Farouk isn't in there."

"No," Clark says, sounding relieved about it himself. "But we do have another surprise guest."

There's a Vermillion standing in the lab, talking to Cary. That's odd, since they're not usually very talkative.

Cary waves her over. "Syd! Come over and say hello to Ptonomy."

"I'm sorry, what?" Clark was right, she is going to need caffeine. More of it than this. Maybe an entire cup of Farouk's café serré.

"Syd," says the Vermillion, with Ptonomy's voice sing-songing out of its speaker. "I'm alive inside the mainframe. Admiral Fukuyama has lent me this Vermillion. I'm thinking about having a suit made for it. Full bodystocking isn't really my style."

"Ptonomy," Syd says, stunned. "Wow, it's really you." She's not a hugger, generally, for obvious reasons. But Ptonomy is actually safe to touch now, and she feels like she should make some kind of gesture to welcome him back. She leans forward and gives him an awkward hug, made extra awkward because the Vermillion's body doesn't react. She lets go and tries to recover from her embarrassment. "I'm really glad you're alive. Do you know what's going on?"

"I've been talking to David. There's been a development in his situation. More than one, actually." 

Ptonomy's Vermillion walks over to a monitor, currently displaying David's cell. Kerry's with him and he's sitting up, dressed in his normal clothes and looking a hell of a lot better than the last time she saw him. The sound is muted, but he and Kerry are chatting and he's still wearing the crown.

Everyone gathers together to listen.

"So, David's been having a rough time. He's been suicidal, tried to hurt himself more than once. We've been keeping a close eye on him, but not close enough. Last night, while he was asleep, Farouk visited him."

"And you didn't stop him?" Syd exclaims, horrified.

"We have no way to stop him," Clark says. "You try telling an omega-level mutant no."

"True. But we also couldn't because we didn't know he was there. He went directly into David's dreams. Apparently it was the only way he could speak to him privately. When David told him to get the hell out, Farouk told him that if he tried to go through with killing himself, Farouk would dedicate himself to torturing all of us for the rest of our lives."

It's not caffeine Syd needs, it's more whiskey.

"When David woke up, he told me about what happened, and that Farouk had blackmailed him into putting his suicide on hold. After conferring with the Admiral, we decided that David is not currently a danger to himself, so he's been released from the restraints. Now that he's had a chance to settle, we're going to have our first therapy session."

"To talk him out of trying to kill himself?" Syd hopes.

"We have bigger problems to deal with first. This was from last night." The monitor changes, and now David is lying in the bed, wearing all white and strapped down. He's alone but every so often he talks aloud, like he's in a conversation with more than one person. The things he says are strange. He ends the conversation by telling whoever is talking to him to leave. 

"And this was from the night before." 

The scene changes again, and now it's the room where David went to sleep alone after they returned from Le Désolé. David is sitting on the bed, looking worried. Then he looks irritated, and turns to the side, and says "I can fix it. I just need time. You saw Syd, she didn't remember." He looks around, listening to nothing. "She's confused. I just need-- we just need time together so she can remember what we had-- have." Another listening pause. "Anyway, Farouk's still alive. I've got to finish it." Whatever he's hearing upsets him, and he shouts, "Would you just-- Get out of my head? I'm trying to think." He moves into a meditation pose and stays there.

"What the hell?" Syd says, stepping towards the screen. Was this right before he projected himself into her room? What the hell is going on? "Is there someone in his head? Controlling him? Again?"

"That's what we're going to find out," Ptonomy says. "Cary and I have a theory I'm going to test. We think this isn't another case of possession, or telepathic intrusion. But we can't be sure until we talk to David."

The screen changes back to the live feed, and now Syd understands what Clark meant. They might not need to worry so much about David's mental health if the reason he's been acting so strangely is that he's someone else entirely.

"For David's comfort," Ptonomy says, "I'd like to ask you all to stay and watch the session from here. This will be a delicate situation. If he does try anything, Kerry and I are strong enough to safely restrain him. Still, I believe he's not in any danger of harming himself, not as long as all our lives are at risk if he does."

Syd stares at the monitor. What is even happening? She can't process this. She walks over to the empty bed and sits down. 

Cary comes over and carefully takes the cup from her hand before she drops it. "Syd, it'll be all right. If it's what I think it is... it'll be all right."

"Nothing about this is all right," Syd says, hearing the panic in her voice. God, last night she thought she had it figured out. She thought she could deal with this crazy situation, find her way back to David and maybe... But he's been trying to kill himself. He might have killed himself last night, while she was passed out in bed sleeping off her drinking binge, and the only reason he didn't was because Farouk popped in and blackmailed him into staying alive.

And now there's someone in his head, telling him to do things, controlling him. Again. God, it never ends.

"How long has this been going on?" she asks.

"That's what we need to find out," Cary says. "I'll handle things on this end," he tells Ptonomy. "Go talk to David."

"Wish me luck," Ptonomy says, and the Vermillion leaves the lab.

Syd's starting to think that throwing up is going to be the highlight of her morning.

§

Ptonomy sits down on the bed with David and sets down his supplies. He can't do much body language work with his host Vermillion, at least not until he's figured out the equivalent of fine motor control. So he has to let his voice do the therapy heavy lifting, even though when he speaks he sounds like he's singing.

Kerry sits in the chair next to the bed and gives David a friendly pat on the shoulder. He's nervous, but he manages a smile back to her.

He's glad that Kerry and David have bonded over the past two days and that she's staying to support him. They've made a surprising pair, but a well-matched one. Cary commented to him earlier that he was so impressed with how well Kerry has connected with David, relating to him and reaching out to him in a way she's never done with anyone but Cary himself. Maybe because she sees David in this state as someone else she can protect. And with David's fragile condition, Kerry's certainty of mind is just what David needs as an influence right now. Based on David's encounter with Farouk, she's already helped make him a little bit better.

But a little bit better isn't going to be enough. Not if he and Cary are right.

"David," Ptonomy begins, in as soothing a tone as he can manage, "there's two big things we need to talk about. We're gonna talk about what's happened to you since the orb took you. But first we need to talk about the voices you've been hearing. The hallucinations?"

David goes pale and wide-eyed. "I-- How did you--"

"You've been talking to yourself for days," Ptonomy says. "Of course we noticed. But I think you've been hearing the voices for longer than that."

David gives a shaky nod. 

"How long?"

"Um, a couple of weeks."

"Since we got Farouk out of your head?"

"Yeah." David swallows. "I wasn't-- At first I thought they were just more noise, leftovers, but once everything else was quiet-- They were still there."

"How many voices?"

"Two. Just two."

"Good, you're doing great." David's dealing with all of this remarkably well, but in a way that's concerning itself. David's spent almost his entire life with Farouk in his head, messing with his perceptions and giving him hallucinations, and then there's David's powers themselves and the complications they add. Ptonomy always suspected that David has a very shaky grasp of reality, and this is only turning that suspicion into a certainty.

"They weren't-- They didn't try to scare me or anything. They're not like-- They've been helping me. When things are difficult." David gives a harsh laugh and rubs at his face. "Things have been really difficult."

"I know," Ptonomy soothes. "So they helped you? How?"

"Well, there's two of them, and they're-- they're pretty different. One of them's kinda bossy, gives me a lot of advice. The other one, um, encourages me to, um, use my powers. Apparently he's been protecting me."

"Protecting you?"

"From Farouk. Other threats. When I get scared, he--" Something about this upsets David, and he stops, fidgets nervously. "Do we have to talk about this?"

"We do, but we can come back to this part later. What about their appearance? You've seen them, not just heard them, right?" It's not typical for hallucinations to be part of what David's dealing with, but there's nothing typical about what David is dealing with.

"Yeah. Yeah, um." Another nervous swallow, a nervous glance at Ptonomy and away. "They look like me. I've started calling them Green and Yellow, because that's the color shirts they're wearing."

"They don't have their own names?"

"I don't—" David says, honestly bewildered. "I didn't even know they were real until-- not that they're real, but-- I only started seeing them after-- In the desert. That's when they--" He's struggling, trying not to get upset, but it's upsetting him. He glances to the side, away from Kerry, and makes a small, dismissive motion.

"Are they here now?" Ptonomy asks, gently.

David looks guilty, like he's been caught hiding something. He nods. "They've been kinda quiet after... There was a lot of yelling, before, and I was upset, and-- I mean, I'm okay now, obviously, but--"

David is obviously very much not okay. "Can I talk to them?" Ptonomy asks.

"Um. I-- I guess? I can ask--"

"No, I mean, can they talk to me directly? Do they take control of your body?"

David wraps his arms around himself. "I don't-- Yellow said-- When I'm in danger, when I can't-- When I can't protect myself, he protects me. They said they were a-- a stress response. To protect me."

Ptonomy can tell that David's getting near his limit, so it's time to change tack. "Based on what you've told me, I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. Would you like me to tell you?"

David takes a calming breath. Braces himself. "Okay." He looks at Ptonomy with wary hope.

"What you've described. Other people that are part of you, that are there to protect you. They are a kind of stress response. It's unusual for them to manifest so late--"

"They're not new," David interrupts. "I mean, I thought they were new, but-- They said Farouk made me forget them."

Ptonomy almost wishes he still wrote case studies. David would make a barn-burner of a case study.

"Okay," he continues. "That actually matches how these things usually happen. They're caused by extreme trauma, usually in childhood. I think that fits your situation pretty well."

David's expression is a masterful understatement.

"Sometimes that trauma can be more than one person can bear. So the mind splits, and one or more other identities form to help spread the load. These multiple identities work together in what's called a system. So in your case, you, David, are the main member of the system. And Green and Yellow, they're other members, or alters, depending on how much they participate."

He stops and lets David take that in.

David fidgets nervously, looks at where Green and Yellow must be standing. He turns back to Ptonomy and rubs at his face. "So you're saying that-- You're saying that I'm schizophrenic."

"The correct term is dissociative identity disorder. The two diagnoses are very--"

"I don't care what it's called!" David shouts, and then takes calming breaths as he tries to regulate his anxiety. "I'm sorry, I just-- I can't believe this is happening." His breathing quickens and he draws in on himself. "Leave me alone!" he shouts, but it's directed at Green and Yellow.

"You're upset," Ptonomy prompts.

"Of course I'm upset!" David says, eyes wide. "I thought--" He's fighting tears, now. "I thought I was-- I just wanted everything to be-- to be okay, to be normal. Nothing's normal. Even my own mind isn't--" He laughs bitterly. "It's not even my mind."

"You're still you," Ptonomy assures him. "David is still David."

David shakes his head, refusing the comfort. "Is there something I can take? Medication to make them go away?" 

David asks the question so desperately, Ptonomy wishes he had a better answer for him. "I'm sorry. This isn't something you can cure or fix. They're a part of you and they have been for most of your life, even if you can't remember. The best thing for all of you is to accept each other and learn to work together."

"No. No." David flinches away from nothing, and it must have been Green or Yellow reaching out to comfort him. "Go away. Go away. Go away! Go away!" He keeps chanting it, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands over his ears, until he opens them and looks around and slumps with relief.

"They're gone?" Ptonomy asks.

David nods. He looks haggard, haunted. The reaction is worse than Ptonomy expected, but in hindsight it makes sense. David's still recovering from the trauma of discovering he had a mental parasite all his life, still recovering from so much, and even if Green and Yellow have been helping him, their presence and his diagnosis have shaken him badly just when he needs as much stability as he can get.

Ptonomy's deeply worried for him. He would put David back in the restraints if he didn't know it would only make his situation worse. David's lost so much control over himself on all levels, they can't risk taking any more away from him even if it puts him at risk. They'll just have to hope that Farouk's threats are powerful enough to keep him alive.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, gently. "We're not gonna talk about anything else. That was it for now, okay?"

David doesn't respond. Damn it. Ptonomy can't end the session like this. He needs to help bring David back to himself, at least a little. But he doesn't think familiar clothes and waffles will do it this time.

"Kerry, could you?" Ptonomy tilts the Vermillions head, and thankfully Kerry understands. She sits down next to David and wraps her arms around him.

"It's okay," she tells him. "Me and Cary have always been inside each other. I protect Cary all the time, and he takes care of me. We've got a system, too."

David chokes up. He tries to say something but can't. He starts crying, which is good, and curls into her arms, which is better. Thank god.

He waits until David has cried himself out, then he takes several items from his supplies.

"When you're feeling better, I want you to try something for me. I want you to ask Green and Yellow to write their names on these cards. Write your own on the third. We'll need them later, okay?"

David accepts the cards and the marker. "Okay." He looks a little bit less awful, but this was a terrible shock for him. They'll have to let him process before they go any further.

"Kerry, can you stay with him? I'll have some lunch brought in for you both."

"I got this," Kerry says, confident. 

"Thank you," he tells her. "I'll go speak with the others. If you need anything just call, I'll be listening."

§

Syd doesn't say anything. No one says anything.

David. Oh god, David.

This is-- She knows exactly what this is. He told her what this is, in Summerland, right before they got Farouk out of his head.

"More than anything else," she says aloud, needing to hear the words he said. "You want to believe you're not sick, because that means you're not crazy. It means you can fall in love and live happily ever after. But you know if you believe it, if you surrender to the hope and you're wrong, then you're never coming back."

"Did David say that?" Cary asks.

Syd nods, and she was right. She is going to cry today. She lets the tears fall, doesn't wipe them away.

Syd told him he wasn't sick. Melanie told him he wasn't sick. They all tried so hard to make him believe he wasn't sick, so he did. And now he can't accept that he is, and it's hurting him so much.

"Do you think he's never coming back?" she asks Cary.

"No, no," Cary says, gently. "That's what he's afraid of, but we're not going to let that happen."

"Maybe--" Syd sniffs. "Maybe I should--"

"No," Cary says, shaking his head. 

No. If she went there, if he saw her-- He's already suicidal. God, if he saw her, he might--

David. Oh god, David. Please don't give up again. Please.


	6. Day 2: I want to talk to Clark.

A while after Ptonomy leaves, some Vermillion come by with lunch trays and clean bedclothes. David stands aside as they strip away the sheets and replace the bloodstained pillow. They remove the restraints from the bed, so it's just a bed, and instead of hospital white the new sheets are familiar, yellow, with a quilted blanket. If he could feel anything, he isn't sure if they'd make him feel better or worse.

When they leave, he sits down on the clean bed and curls up into a ball.

Kerry, diligent in her body stuff practice, reluctantly chews her way through some dumplings, and slurps with enthusiasm at some kind of soda. David leaves his tray untouched on the other end of the bed. Right now he can't even imagine the concept of hunger.

He just wants to be alone, but they don't trust him to be alone. Kerry was absolutely resolute about staying put. The most she would do was to move her chair away from the bed so he could have some personal space.

Ha. Personal space. 

His life is over.

He’s never going to see daylight again. Division 3 will never let him out of this cell. He’ll have to suffer wearing this painful crown for the rest of his life, however long or short that will be, and then they’ll kill him— No, they’ll put him down because he’s nothing more than a rabid dog, too sick and dangerous for the world to tolerate. 

Green and Yellow are gone — or not gone, he doesn't know what they do when he can't hear them. But after he stubbornly ignored their attempts to talk to him, they finally stopped trying and went quiet.

He doesn’t care if they want to help him. They’re what’s making him sick. They're why his life is over. 

He just wants to die. Why won’t they let him die? What’s the point in keeping him alive? Why make him suffer and suffer when there's nothing left to hope for? At least he understands why Farouk won’t let him go. David’s pain is his pleasure, the way it’s always been. The only thing David's life is good for now is being the punching bag for a vile sadist whose godlike powers will ensure he never escapes.

Maybe he can convince Clark to put a stop to this farce. He’s the only one of them who seems to understand the truth, who knows what Division 3 should have done back when they had the chance.

David raises his head from his knees. "I want to talk to Clark."

Kerry slurps the last of her drink and sets the empty glass aside. She narrows her eyes supiciously. "Why?"

"It's private."

Kerry snorts. "Yeah, in this place? Good luck with that."

"I want to talk to Clark," David says again, too done with everything to deal with anything else.

"No," Kerry says. "Not until you tell me why."

David tightens the hug he has around his folded legs. "I want to talk to Clark." He's not raising his voice. He's just going to keep saying it until he gets what he's asking for.

Kerry huffs, like she can't believe she has to deal with him being such a child. "You're just trying to trick me into leaving."

"I want to talk to Clark."

"I'm not leaving you alone so you can try to—" Kerry says, too angry to finish. 

David looks away from her. "Because of Farouk."

"Don’t be stupid," Kerry says. "I know you’re hurting but we’re all here because we care about you and we want you to get better. I don't care about that stupid jerk. He can threaten me all he wants, if he tries anything I'll kick him. Maybe he's the only thing that makes you care about your life but the rest of us just care about you because you're you, ok?"

David can't even begin to think about any of that. "I want to talk to—"

The door opens and Clark walks in. 

"It's okay," Clark says, holding up a hand to pacify them. He turns to Kerry. "You don't have to leave him alone."

Clark holds the door open and looks at Kerry expectantly. With a huff she walks through, giving David a warning look as she leaves. 

Clark closes the door and shuts it.

"Like she said, not much privacy in this place."

David puts his head back down. He feels the bed shift when Clark sits down.

"You wanted something?" Clark prompts, eventually.

David gathers his strength. He forces himself to look up, to meet Clark's eyes so he knows this isn't a joke, so he knows David absolutely means every single word of what he's about to say.

"Farouk said— He only said I couldn’t kill myself. He didn’t say you couldn’t kill me."

Clark, to his credit, doesn't so much as blink. "I'm not sure he'll see it that way. Suicide-by-proxy is still suicide. And honestly are you willing to take that risk?"

David puts his head back down. He doesn't have the energy to argue, especially when he's doomed to lose. 

"I’m sorry, it's just not possible," Clark continues. "Not unless Farouk suddenly changes his mind about keeping you alive."

"He won't."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Clark asks. "Where there's life there's hope?"

"Oh, please," David grumbles, looking up again just so he can show that he's annoyed. "Say it like you mean it."

"You're right," Clark acknowledges. "At the moment, I don't see any way out of this situation for you. You're at the mercy of an unstable god who's tortured you for your entire life. What I'm trying to do is prevent anyone else from ending up in the same situation."

David could pretend that Clark is talking about Farouk, but he knows he's not.

"Please," he begs, the word trembling and heartfelt. 

"My advice is that you focus on getting better," Clark says. "If you can be considered stable—"

"I'm sorry, what's the point?" David asks, bitterly. "I'm sure you heard Ptonomy from wherever it is you listen in on me. There's no cure, no treatment. There's no such thing as better for me, not— not anymore. And even if everything else was great, we both know Farouk will never stop torturing me so what's the point? Just... just let me go. Before it's too late."

David puts his head back down and breathes in the small space between his chest and his knees. God, he just can't. He can't. 

"There... is a way," Clark says. "For us to actually let you go."

David's head feels so heavy when he picks it up again. He doesn't bother to ask, he just waits to hear what nonsense Clark has come up with now.

"There's no cure for your illness," Clark admits. "But there may be one for your powers." When David just stares at him, he continues. "I've already raised the matter with Cary, but he refused to consider it, said it was too dangerous—"

"But it's possible?" David asks, a tiny spark of hope lighting in his chest. It burns like acid.

"Theoretically," Clark admits.

David sits up, lowers his knees. "And if I don't have any powers?" He leans forward.

"Then you would be nothing more than a man with mental illness. You would be free to leave, assuming you don’t kill yourself. Is that what you want?"

David’s powers are the only thing that make him special, the only reason he's worth anything to anyone. They're why Melanie found him and tried to help him, so he could win her war for her. They're why Division 3 needed him to stop Farouk, why Future Syd needed him for— whatever she— Whatever. It doesn't matter. Maybe if he doesn’t have them anymore, they’ll all let him go. Maybe even Farouk will let him go, because there’s no point in trying to make him crazy enough to destroy the world if he’s just a sick, powerless human.

And then when Farouk is gone, then he can kill himself. 

"It’s what I want," David says, with absolute certainty.

Clark nods. "I’ll go talk to Cary."

§

Kerry's mad at him. He knows she was listening in from the hall, because the moment she came in she gave him a look so lethal by all rights he should be dead already and all his problems solved.

It doesn't matter. She can be mad all she wants. If this works, he'll never destroy the world and no one will be tortured and all of this, all of this will finally, finally, _finally_ be over.

Cary doesn't look especially happy when he arrives. David doesn't care. For the first time in days, there's some kind of light at the other end of the tunnel. It doesn't matter to him if it's an exit or an oncoming train.

"I spoke to Clark," Cary says, sitting down in the same spot Clark had sat.

"And?" David asks, waiting.

"David," Clark says. "I want you to understand. There's only one way to remove your powers, and that requires a complete rewrite of your entire genetic code."

"Okay," David says.

"We only have one way to do that. A genetic sculpting gun. The same one Farouk stole and used to— alter your sister."

David leans back. Amy.

"The gun works by using someone else's genetic data. If we used it, it wouldn't just remove your powers. It would overwrite everything that makes you who you are. You wouldn't be yourself anymore."

It's not— David closes his eyes. It's not ideal. He would— He would die the way Amy died, if she— He can still hear her screams, the memory of her screams—

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So what if there's pain, blood, screaming? He'll die as he lived.

"Okay," David says, opening his eyes and trying not to shake. "Can you— Can you build another one? How long...?"

Cary looks away, covers his eyes, pushing up his glasses with his hand. Kerry sobs and runs out of the room, the door slamming behind her.

"David," Cary says, voice thick with grief. 

"It's okay," David says, even though his own voice is trembling, even though his eyes are wet. "It's okay because— because there's no me anyway, there's nothing— I'm not— I wouldn't be dead, so Farouk—" He can't say any more, there's no air in his chest, he can't breathe past the pinprick tightness in his throat, he can't— 

He pulls himself back into a ball, shaking, shaking.

When Cary's hand touches his shoulder, he flinches. But Cary doesn't take it away. He keeps touching David as he shakes and shakes and gasps against his knees. 

"Of course there's a you," Cary says, so gently. "If there's no you, then who's making this huge decision?"

"No," David sobs. It's all he can say.

"Is that what you think?" Cary asks. "That you're gone?"

David lifts his head, even though he can't stop the tears pouring out of his eyes and there's snot in his nose and he still can't stop shaking and he still can't breathe.

Cary hugs him. He wraps his arms around David and holds him tight. It's a good hug, the best hug, and it feels like forever since anyone— He cries into Cary's sweater vest and cries and cries and cries, and Cary just keeps holding him.

It's a storm raging through him and when it's over there's nothing left, nothing. Cary lies him down, careful to place the pillow so there's isn't any pressure on the crown. He grabs the folded blanket from the end of the bed and wraps David up in it, tucking it tight around his body. He rests a hand on David's shoulder and stays with him.

"Did I ever tell you about how I met Kerry?" Cary doesn't wait for David to answer, just continues, his voice soft and lulling. "I was very young, just a little boy when I first heard her voice in my head. I was so young I didn't know there was anything strange about it. She was my invisible friend. And then one day she showed up, real as life, and I was so happy that I could finally see my invisible friend. But little boys grow up. And Kerry, she was so shy. If anyone else was around, she'd stay hidden deep inside of me where no one could see. But I kept hearing her, talking to her, because that was the only way I knew to be." He pauses. "Back then, no one understood much about multiple personalities. So I was diagnosed as schizophrenic."

David takes a sharp breath in.

"Our family was poor, but the school gave me medication. Antipsychotics. They didn't work, of course. Kerry kept talking and I kept talking back, but for years she didn't come out at all because she was afraid they would do to her what they were doing to me. For a while I thought I was losing my mind. Those years were very hard. But do you know what got me through them? Kerry. No matter what happened, she was always there, always sharing my experiences with me. As long as I could hear her, I knew I wasn't alone, that I never would be.

"And then one day, I met a man who told me about the existence of mutants. Oliver Bird and his wonderful wife Melanie. Melanie was the first person who Kerry felt safe enough to come out for. And then all of a sudden, I wasn't schizophrenic anymore, I didn't have multiple personalities. I was a mutant. Sometimes with situations like ours, it can take us a while to figure everything out."

David finds his voice, even though it's tight and rasping. "You're not—"

"I'm not?" Cary asks, warmly. "Not a mutant, like you? I don't share a body with another mind, like you? Kerry and I have been part of each other our whole lives, just like your other selves have always been a part of you. What we have, who we are. Maybe if it wasn't for my powers, my age, my diagnosis would have been the same as yours is now. But it doesn't matter what anyone calls it.

"David, you've survived so much. What you’ve been through, what you’ve lost. There are things you’ll never get back. But that’s not a reason to give up. Your situation will always be unique to you. But having other people inside you doesn't mean you're not there. It just means you're not alone. And that's the most important thing for you to remember right now. You’re not facing any of this on your own. You just have to let us help you, all of us, so one day you’ll be well enough to help yourself."

When he's finished, Cary stays with him, his hand resting on David's shoulder.

"Okay," David rasps. And maybe, maybe, maybe, there's a tiny spark of hope lighting in his chest that feels like sunlight.

§

Cary stays with him until he falls asleep. David's so tired, bone-weary, everything in him spent.

When he wakes, hours later, he's still tired. But the all-consuming black has receded from his soul. He can breathe again, so he breathes.

Eventually he sits up, rubs the dried tears from his eyes, the spit from his face. He feels like a mess and he probably looks like one. But there's no one there to see it, at least not in the room with him. He's alone.

He's alone. He nearly collapses with relief.

His tray at the end of the bed is gone, but the chair has been moved back beside the bed and there's another tray on it with a covered plate. He lifts the cover and there's a wrapped sandwich, some fruit. He puts the cover back on and next to the plate is a set of three blank cards and a marker.

He gets up, legs shaky, and washes his face at the sink. He is a mess, eyes red and puffy. But he feels purged and calmer than he's felt in days, weeks, all his frantic, nervous energy finally drained away.

He drinks a lot of water and eats the food. Then he puts the cards on the bed.

It's hard to not be afraid. He was possessed his whole life, haunted by another mind. He didn't know he was possessed and he didn't know about the other hims. What did Ptonomy call them? Alters?

Okay. His alters. Green and Yellow, or not, because they've been with him since he was a child, they must have names. Real names. Because they're real people. Like Kerry and Cary, living inside each other, real people living inside him, and he just forgot.

He just forgot. Like he forgot Benny. He forgets things, people. That doesn't mean Benny isn't real.

They're not parasites. They're not Farouk. They're not going to hurt him or scare him. They want to help him. They're just people, like him. They're parts of him that he forgot, like the other parts of him that he forgot.

"Hello?" he calls, voice rough and tentative.

Nothing, and suddenly he's worried. He pushed them away so much, what if they're never coming back? What if after all of this they don't want—

"Hey," says Green, his voice just behind David's left ear. 

"Hi," says Yellow, from his right.

They're shy, David thinks. Like Kerry was shy.

He can do this. He's doing this.

"Hi," he says back, staring at the cards. "I'm sorry for all the— Um, so— I have this thing, this, um— I have to ask you something. If it's okay."

"It's okay," Green says, gently. He sounds a little bit like Cary when he talks that way, slow and easy.

The next part is hard. It's hard. It's giving up control and he has so little left to give. His hands are trembling as he grips the marker, removes the cap.

"I, um, I need you to— Each of you. One at a time. If you could use my, um, our hand? To write your names?"

God, this is strange. What is he even doing? This is madness.

But then his right hand steadies itself. It moves over the first card and brings the tip of the marker down. David watches as a name appears in careful handwriting, neater than his own.

"This is my name," says Green.

There's a pause, and then his right hand moves to the next card. His right hand is still steady even though his left hand is still trembling. The tip of the marker touches the paper, and writes in strong, all-block letters.

"This is mine," says Yellow.

His right hand starts trembling again, and that's when David knows they're done. So he brings the marker over to the third card, and writes his own name on it.

He looks at the three cards.

Divad, written neatly.

Dvd, in block letters.

David, the letters as shaky as his hands.

David. 

There are two other people inside him. But he's still himself. He's still here.

David is still David.

He holds his card and cries, and smiles, and breaks down again.


	7. Day 2: His true face.

It's Kerry that he's worried about first. Cary's heart would have broken for her when he heard her anguished sob as she ran out of David's cell, if it hadn't already been shattered. But by the time he gets back to the lab, he finds her solely focused on knocking the stuffing out of the heaviest punching bag they have.

He knows from experience that there's no point in trying to talk to her when she's like this, in too much of a state to do anything but vent her anger. So he leaves her to it. When she's worked some of her feelings out — or she's destroyed every piece of training equipment they own — then he'll try and coax her into talking.

There's no rush, really. None of them are going anywhere. 

Cary’s lab has never been so full of people. It’s not just Oliver and Melanie sleeping in his lab now. He’s had to bring more beds in, cots tucked into the corners because no one dares to leave for long. It’s probably for the best. David’s not the only one suffering from his pain, not by a long shot. It’s hard for all of them to watch him, to see him so broken. 

It's best that they all stay close to each other. Cary's worried about all of them, even himself.

Except Clark. Cary's not worried about Clark. Right now, a part of Cary wishes that he could string Clark up in the exercise area and let Kerry work out her frustrations on him instead of the bag.

He doesn't know where Clark is now. Clark drifts in and out if the lab; he doesn’t need Ptonomy’s live feed to stay informed of David’s progress. There’s technology inside him, communications embedded in his body that keep him part of the flow of Division 3’s surveillance and command systems. In some ways he’s as much a part of Admiral Fukuyama’s mainframe as Ptonomy has become. 

Cary wouldn't call Clark inhuman. That would be an insult to the inhuman.

What Clark did, telling David that there might be a way to remove his powers... When Cary saw him say it, over the feed, he was more furious than he had ever been in his life. David was already beyond a breakdown, deeply suicidal and heartbreakingly accepting of the necessity of his own death. And then because of Clark, Cary had no choice but to go down there and tell David what it would take to remove those powers. He had to explain to David exactly how horrible and untenable such an act would be.

Cary hoped, with all his heart, that his words would finally be enough to shock David back to sense. That the mere idea of dying in the same manner as his sister would make him see what he was doing to himself, to all of them. Surely, Cary hoped, surely that would finally make David see that all of this had to stop. 

It didn't. 

David begged Cary to kill him. To erase him. He begged him knowing exactly what he would suffer, having been tortured with the memory of Amy’s agonized transformation. David’s haunted, despair-fevered eyes will follow Cary to his grave. 

Yet in the end it was enough. Thank god it was enough. David finally couldn’t drive himself any further, couldn’t hurt himself any more, even though he was pushing for that final, hideous step with all his might. 

Cary did his best to catch him as he fell, tried to offer him a lifetime’s worth of wisdom earned with his own suffering and fear and pain, distilled down and sealed into a pill small enough to swallow. It's the only medicine he can truly offer, a tiny antidote to the poison that’s been burning David alive.

He thinks it was enough. He hopes...

After David finally fell asleep, Cary made the decision to let him wake up alone. Even though Cary has never truly been alone in his life — even though David hasn't either — he knows there is a curative effect to a quiet room, a chance to breathe, to be still. If David is ever going to get better, they have to give him the opportunity to do so. They have to trust David so he can learn to trust himself.

This is the most delicate of moments. David's lost too much to find his way back on his own, but he has to make the journey himself or it won't be his at all. Cary still believes that David can return to them, but only if they give him someplace to start, a first step on the path to healing.

Cary looks over at the live feed again. He can't look away from it for long, none of them can, even though David is still resting quietly, his breathing steady and even. Cary needs to see those signs of life, needs them to know he made the right choice two days ago, when Farouk came out of his cell and turned everything upside-down.

If David can't make it back to them, Cary knows he will blame himself. That grief will be his burden to bear, because it was his own testimony that started all this. It was his own handiwork, that tiny, innocent-looking orb, that snatched David away from Summerland. Even if he created it for good reason, even if David's fate truly was that of a world-killer, Cary knows in his heart that if the orb had never taken David away from them, then David wouldn't be lost to himself the way he is now.

He knows that Syd will blame herself, too. He knows she already does. She hasn't said anything since their short conversation after David's diagnosis. She's just haunted the lab with the rest of them, sometimes watching David, sometimes turning away because the pain of watching is too great.

He can't reach her either, not right now. Not while they're all suspended, waiting to see what will happen when David wakes, waiting to see if they can stop holding their breath. Waiting to see if David will live, so they can live.

While they're waiting, the last of their ragged crew returns. Cary knows he definitely should be worried about Ptonomy, no matter how well the man seems to be adapting to life in the Admiral's mainframe. His death was sudden and tragic and physically horrific. His mind has survived, seemingly intact, but at what cost to his soul? His spirit?

In a way, maybe David's condition is a blessing in disguise. It's brought Ptonomy back to them, given him a purpose outside of the mainframe. A connection to the humanity that he could easily have left behind and still might. Sometimes the best medicine for the soul is to reach out and give of one's self to another human being. 

Ptonomy pauses in front of the live feed, then moves to a second monitor. The screen changes to reveal another moment in David's life, not this one but from two weeks ago. The moment of David's miraculous return to Division 3. The beginning of what Cary prays is not his end.

"Have you found something else?" Cary asks, going over to join him.

"Nothing yet," Ptonomy says. "But I thought a few more pairs of eyes might help."

Cary gives a hum of agreement. "If David's alters have taken charge of him in the past, there's no reason why it would be obvious. Especially if his identities are similar in affect. We might not know they're in control even once we know what we're looking for."

Ptonomy's Vermillion goes quiet. Then: "Earlier, David said that one of his alters admitted to controlling him when he’s in dangerous situations."

"Yellow," Cary recalls. "So when has David's life been in danger? When was he unable to protect himself?"

On the screen, Cary sees himself trying to wake David up. Kerry steps out to keep back the child soldiers, her fists raised. 

"I don't think he has been in physical danger, not since he gained control over his powers," Ptonomy says. "Mental, emotional danger, but not physical."

On the screen, David opens his eyes and asks for waffles.

"What about last year?" Cary asks. "Before Farouk was removed." There was no surveillance system at Summerland. That kind of panopticon was antithetical to everything they were trying to achieve there. Clockworks, for all its faults, didn't invade the privacy of its patients that way either. But Division 3 has been recording everything for a long time. 

The screen changes to surveillance video of the old Division 3 compound. David appears and strolls towards the guards. They open fire and he spins like a dancer as their limbs separate from their bodies.

"Farouk," Cary says, with disgust. There's nothing at all like David in how David's body prances through the compound, taunting and joyous as he effortlessly massacres everyone who tries to stop him.

"I agree," Ptonomy says. He must find the footage as disturbing as Cary, because he stops it, freezing on the inverted image of Farouk's misshapen form, the truth revealed by Division 3's psychic filters. The parasite, bloated on his victim's power.

Cary thinks back. "Division 3 took David before we could get to him after his escape from Clockworks. Before we rescued him, is there any footage?"

There is. Cary's never seen this before. David is unconscious, hauled into a room by black-clad soldiers and dumped into a chair. There's a red table in front of him, and the place seems to be set up as a kind of police interview room. There's a man dressed as an officer, and office noises start up, adding to the illusion. 

David wakes slowly, disoriented and confused. When he sees the officer, he instantly looks guilty, slumps in surrender. He must think the police have found him and he's going to be taken back to Clockworks.

Clark appears, and Walter. Cary tenses as the interview begins. It's a thinly-veiled attempt to provoke David into an emotional state that will trigger his powers. Clark toys with him, taking his time, gradually ramping the pressure up while David struggles mightily to stay calm and cooperate. David's powers leak out when he panics, making the pen jitter on the table, and when Clark pushes him too far, the pen flings itself into Clark's cheek.

That's when Walter grabs David and slams his head against the table. 

It's a physical threat, and David couldn't protect himself. His eyes roll back as his posture and expression change, and then the room explodes with force, the table flipping and shattering, everyone but David flung away to crash against the walls. David stands at the center of the destruction, grinning darkly. And then the gas pours down and he falls.

"That's not David," Cary decides.

Ptonomy rewinds the footage, freezes on David's menacing smile. "I think we've just met Yellow."

"What?" Syd walks over, stares at the image of David. 

Cary's not sure how much she heard, or how much she processed. She's taken all of this so hard. "We've been trying to identify any moments where David's alters may have been in control. We believe this is Yellow, trying to protect David when he was captured by Division 3."

Syd stares at the image, then takes a step back, shaking her head. "No. No, this is—" She's horrified but doesn't look away. "His true face."

"Syd?" Ptonomy calls, concerned.

"The one he hides," Syd says, and she's not herself, she's caught in something. "The monster." Then she turns away, her hand over her mouth. She's shaking.

Cary has never seen her like this. Syd is always so in control, so strong in herself, even if that strength can feel brittle to him. "Syd?" he calls, reaching out, but stopping himself because she can't be touched.

"I believed it," she says, distantly. "I believed everything that asshole wanted me to believe."

"Farouk?" Cary guesses. "What did he want you to believe?"

"That David was evil," Syd says, voice trembling. "And I believed it. Everything felt so clear, wrong and clear and—" She holds herself still, so utterly still. She's the opposite of David, whose wild emotions can overwhelm him and send him physically reeling. 

"When was this?" Ptonomy asks. "In the desert?"

Cary knows some of what happened in the desert, but not enough. He knows David did something to Syd's mind. Maybe this is why he thought he had to. "Syd, what happened to you?"

Syd shakes her head. "He told me. He told me what he was doing to me and I still believed him. Why? Because that's what I wanted? How could I want that?"

"Syd," Cary says, at a loss. "Whatever he did to you, it wasn't your fault."

Syd looks away from them, and her eyes catch on the live feed. She looks back at the frozen image of David, of Yellow smiling with David's face. She looks back at David now, huddled on the bed, pale and swollen-eyed and so, so fragile.

"I did this to him," she says, distantly. "I thought— I wanted him to save the world. I wanted him to be a fighter. I showed him, over and over, how to hold on to his pain and use it, because that's—" She takes a tight breath, but her eyes are dry.

"You tried to help him?" Cary guesses.

"He was so—" Syd looks to them at last, begging them to understand. "He was always so— I thought— when he came back, with the monster gone, I thought he was ready to be strong."

"He wasn't," Ptonomy says, but kindly.

"I made him worse," Syd says, with quiet devastation. "The only thing that kept him going was love, and I told him love made him stupid and weak. And then I let Farouk take me away from him, and now there's nothing left to save him."

"This isn't your fault," Ptonomy says, firmly. "You were trying to help. You told him what works for you. Maybe it wasn't right for him, but a little bad advice is nothing compared to what Farouk did to him. It's not even a drop in the ocean that he's drowning in. Blaming yourself won't make him better."

"It wasn't love, what I did to him," she says, a few tears finally leaking out. "What if he's never coming back?"

Ptonomy says nothing. 

"Syd," Cary tries, but can't find it in himself to lie and say that David will be okay. David might never be okay again.

"We're doing what he wants now," Syd continues. "Farouk. We're doing exactly what he wants, keeping David alive. We're torturing him."

"Syd, no," Cary says, alarmed. "You know that's not the answer."

"Isn't it?" she asks, desperate. "Sometimes it’s just too late. Sometimes there’s nothing left to save. My mother, she was brilliant and strong and a fighter but her cancer took everything. Every last inch, and in the end—" She closes her eyes tight, opens them again. "She begged me, just like David begged you. To let her die in peace. We didn't let her, and she died in so much pain. I did that to her, to my own mother."

"David isn't dying," Cary says, firmly. 

"Isn't he?" Syd asks, on the edge of despair. "He was sick all this time and we let him suffer. Just like my mother. He's been sick for so long."

"So you wanna kill him too?" Kerry's there, suddenly, even angrier for what she's overheard.

The bluntness of her question startles Syd. "I—"

"You said you loved him. If you love someone, you don't give up on them even if they give up on themselves."

"Kerry," Cary warns, even though he's frankly impressed by her maturity. Sometimes he forgets that she's as old as he is; that for all her naivete about the world, she understands some things with the wisdom they've earned together.

"I'm not giving up on David even if everyone else does," Kerry declares. "I'm not gonna give up on him because he has to get better so he can apologize to me for being stupid."

"That's right," Ptonomy says, seizing on the opportunity to bring the situation back under control. "We're not giving up on David. Right now what he needs most is our patience and support. We can't give him that if we're busy tearing ourselves apart. That's what Farouk wants us to do. Don't let him torture us again. Okay?"

Ptonomy's Vermillion stares at Syd, pressing her for a response. Challenging her.

"Okay," Syd says, backing down, cooling off. Then she turns and leaves, walks out of the lab.

"Let her," Cary says, cautioning the others from following her. Syd has always been intensely private, the best thing they can do for her right now is let her lick her wounds. 

She'll be back. None of them are going anywhere. 

Kerry rolls her eyes at Syd's departure, but as she turns her eyes catch on the second monitor. She steps up to it and frowns at it, disturbed by the un-David-like smile on David's face. 

"What if—" she asks, suddenly hesitant. 

"Kerry?" Cary asks. For all her defiance, of course she has her doubts. Of course she does. She has no understanding of what's actually happening to David.

"Yellow and Green. What if we don't like them? What if they're bad?"

"They're not bad," Cary assures her. 

"We don't know that," Kerry says. "Just because they say they're protecting David it doesn't mean they are. They could be lying. Tricking him to hurt him. They're sneaky, hiding like that."

"Like you hide?" Cary says, a little harshly. But he wants to put an end to this idea before it can grow.

Kerry does managed to look chastised, but she's not done. "I don't want some strangers taking him over."

"They're not strangers, they're David."

"You said they were other people," Kerry says, exasperated. "Both of you said that. I heard it."

"They are other people," Ptonomy explains. "But they're also David. They're not a threat to David because they are David. They're not some outside influence trying to take control of him."

"I don't understand," Kerry says.

"It's complicated," Cary admits. "The kind of situation David's dealing with, where he's forgotten these parts of himself, I don't know that it's ever happened before to anyone. David isn't just a person, he's a system. He's multiple people, each as truly a part of him as the other."

Kerry just looks at him, lost.

"What David has is different from you and Cary," Ptonomy explains to her. "The best way to understand it is from his perspective. He was a child, his identity still forming, and terrible things happened to him. So terrible that he couldn't accept that they were happening to him. So he decided that they weren't. His mind split between the him that was suffering, and the him that wasn't. It gave him a way to save some parts of himself from what he was experiencing, to gain control over a situation he had no control over."

Kerry takes this in. "So, like... he pretended he was someone else?"

"He wasn't pretending," Ptonomy says. "Any more than you're pretending to be Kerry instead of Cary. He is David, and he's also Green and Yellow."

"All at the same time?"

"The mind is very complicated," Ptonomy says. "We barely understand how healthy minds work, much less those like David's. How do you truly know your body is part of you? That you are in control of your own thoughts and actions? Most of it is an illusion. Our awareness of ourselves is just a thin layer over countless separate systems, conflicting and pushing against each other until somehow they agree. Our selves can seem very solid, but they're not. Things can go wrong, and sometimes there's no way to put them back the way they were."

"No," Kerry says, denying his words. They're too much for her to understand, much less accept.

"Kerry," Cary says, trying to soothe her. "The important thing to remember is that even though David's identities will always be separate, they are all him. They're how he was able to survive what Farouk did to him, to get him all the way to us so we can help him now."

"I don't want him to be someone else," Kerry says, her chin crumpling. "We just got him back and it's not fair that he has to be someone else."

She throws herself against Cary like she's trying to hide inside him, but she can't do that anymore. She cries out in frustration and thumps at Cary's chest, trying to force her way back in. Cary holds her and wishes that he could let her in. He wishes he could spare her this, like he's spared her from so much.

He holds her as long as she needs him to. He can still manage that much.

"Why don't you go get us something to eat?" he prompts her. "Pick whatever you like."

"Cream soda?" she says, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. 

"Cream soda," Cary agrees.

Once she's gone, Cary sits down, emotionally exhausted. God, all of this is so hard. He's not used to this, to being the one everyone relies on. That was Melanie's job. He took her so much for granted.

He wishes she would wake up. But he's not sure what's left of her, either, now that Farouk is done with her. Maybe it's better that she sleeps.

"She's wrong, you know," Ptonomy says.

"Hm?"

"About David being someone else now," Ptonomy explains. "It’s possible for identities to die, even main members. That means if David had truly given up before, Green or Yellow or another alter would have taken over in his absence. David wouldn’t be David anymore. He would have a different identity, a different name. But that’s not what we’re dealing with. As painful as it is, even the fact that David wants to die means he’s still fighting. He wants to exist, to keep living. He just doesn’t know how."

"You're right," Cary says, grateful for the solace. For the hope, however slender, that David has the strength to make it through all of this. "Thank you. As you said, David is still David."

"That he is."

"And is Ptonomy still Ptonomy?" Cary asks.

"I don't know," Ptonomy admits, quietly. "But whatever I am, I exist. Maybe that's enough."

"If it's not, you'll tell me?" Cary doesn't want to let him slip away, like they let Melanie and Oliver and David slip away. There’s nothing easy or simple about what any of them have been through and will yet have to endure. But none of them has to endure it alone. 

"I'll tell you," Ptonomy agrees.


	8. Day 3: Divad and Dvd and David.

David.

Divad and Dvd.

Divad and Dvd and David.

All evening he tries to remember them, his alters. They've been part of him for so long, surely there must be something Farouk didn't take away, some scrap of memory overlooked until—

But there's nothing. There's nothing. He goes over the same old memories again, the way he has countless times, trying to sew together the scraps into something that will hold together, something that he can look back on and recognize as himself.

He can't remember Benny either, even though he knows that Lenny wasn't ever a part of his life before he met her in Clockworks. He's known for weeks but the memories of Benny are still gone. They're lacunas, dotting the galaxies of his mind like tiny black holes, information going in but never coming back out again. Destroyed, even though the laws of physics say that no information is ever truly destroyed.

He is here to tell the laws of physics that they are very, very wrong.

Divad and Dvd are mostly quiet, still giving him time to adjust and recover. But he can sense them, the closeness of their presence within him. They don't leave him again, not like before.

It helps. His heart is as raw as his eyes, his throat, but it helps, feeling them. Not being alone.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, when he's finally getting too tired to try to remember them anymore, when sleep is pulling at him down at last. "I wish I could—"

"It's okay," Divad says. "It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could do."

A few more tears leak out of David's eyes and he doesn't know how. He's cried all day and he keeps thinking he's done but somehow there's still more tears inside him. The well of grief in his chest must be bottomless, filling and filling no matter how much pours out of him. He doesn't want to be sad anymore but he doesn't know how to stop. 

He keeps going back over Cary's words to him, turning them into a kind of mantra, something to hold on to, to help keep him going through all of this. Through whatever transformation he'll have to endure.

He's survived. There are things he's lost that he'll never get back. But he's here and he's not alone. And if he lets someone help him, one day he'll be well enough to help himself.

He holds the words close to his heart, pulling on the strength of them, trying to make it his own.

§

Kerry doesn't come back in the morning. David must have scared her, hurt her badly, and he's sorry for that. He didn't mean to. He just couldn't—

He couldn't. He'd been pushed so far beyond his ability to deal with anything that's been happening that he got lost, so, so lost. He wishes he had a window just so he could see the sun rise, so he could see the new day begin. The dawn has always made him feel like he has the chance to start again, no matter how dark the night before had been. But he's still in a prison cell, a sub-basement dungeon. That's still where he belongs.

"David," warns Divad, concerned but trying not to push.

"I know," David says, stepping back from the mental cliff he'd nearly strolled right off of. It's strange: having someone hear his thoughts, watching for bad ones as they arrive. Was this how it worked for them before? Was this how Divad used to help him before Farouk took him away from them, and them away from him?

He doesn't know. And it's been so long for all of them, so long since the body of David Haller had anything resembling any kind of healthy mind inside of it. This isn't just new for him, he's realizing. This is going to be new for all of them.

Ptonomy arrives with breakfast. Waffles, of course, but also eggs and bacon and hash browns and a sliced orange. David eats everything, barely able to keep up with his own hunger; his body is starving for energy.

"You're looking much better this morning," Ptonomy says, the Vermillion's speaker making him cheerfully sing.

David heaves a sigh. "Yeah. I feel..." He doesn't know what word to use. "Better." That's good enough. He burps, and covers his mouth. "Sorry."

Ptonomy laughs, which is weird because the Vermillion doesn't. It moves its lips, synchronized with the speaker, but no one would call that a laugh.

David takes a moment to remind himself that as bad as his situation is, it really could be worse. At least he still has his body, he's still alive inside it, even if he's sharing it with two veritable strangers. When Ptonomy had first returned, showing up in a hacked Vermillion in the cafeteria, David was confused and bewildered and then— And then nothing else had mattered but the name. La Désolé. There was no room in his head then for anything but Farouk and revenge. He was consumed, boiling with it day and night ever since Amy—

He's been lost for a while, he thinks. So, so lost, since long before he started wandering in the desert.

"So, um— What's it like? In— In the mainframe?" David glances away, ashamed for not asking sooner. "Sorry I didn’t— things have been— I know, it’s no— it’s no excuse. You’re— I mean, you died, I’m just—"

David swallows. He reaches out in his mind, and Divad is there, right there. 

"It's okay," Ptonomy tells him, then pauses, thinking. "I'm not sure, honestly. I'm still getting used to it. I’m still myself here, or at least I think I am. I feel calmer. Less angry about things that used to feel important. Maybe it was my body making me angry.”

That sounds... David doesn't know what it sounds like. "Is it— is it nice?"

"It’s busy. There's so much information flowing all the time, from so many places. It’s a lot like memory walking, but bigger, wider. It's like I'm walking through the whole world at once, and I don't have to take a step."

Oh. "Do you need to, uh— Should you be doing something else? Right now? With all the—"

The Vermillion's eyes hadn't exactly gone distant, but now they focus on him. "Not at all. This is exactly where I need to be. I see you did your homework. Can you show me?"

David had been fidgeting with the cards on and off all through breakfast. He picks them up again and lays them out on the bed, in the same order as they were made.

Divad. Dvd. David.

"All variations on your name," Ptonomy observes. "Interesting."

"Is that— Is that bad?"

"Not at all. Every system is unique to its members and their needs. So tell me about them, Divad and Dvd. Which one's which?"

David feels kinda funny about calling them after their shirt colors now. "Divad is Green. Dvd is Yellow."

"And you've been talking to them again?"

"A little," David admits. "They're being very—" What's the right word? Not shy. "Cautious."

Ptonomy hums. "Yesterday, you said there was shouting? Do you want to talk about that?"

Not really, but David's given up on not talking about things he doesn't want to talk about. "He— he hurt them. Farouk. I don't know— what he did, exactly, but—" He takes a breath. "I think it was hard for them. Watching me—" He takes another breath, another. He's so tired of crying, he just wants to make it through the morning without crying and he knows he won't.

"That makes sense," Ptonomy says, all soothing, musical tones. "It's hard watching someone you care about suffer."

"I tried," David says, eyes welling up just as he knew they would. "I tried to remember them. I tried. I wish you could still—" He swallows a sob. "Maybe if you could still go inside, you could have found something." He closes his eyes, breathes deep, fighting the tightness in his throat. "He took that too."

David picks up his card. He holds it in his hands. David is still David. He's still here. He survived. There are things he's lost that he'll never get back. But he's here and he's not alone. 

"We're here," Divad says, soft and close. 

"We're both here," Dvd says.

David picks up the other two cards and holds them tightly, all three together, perfectly lined up. Even though he's been wearing away the edges of the paper, when they're pressed together this way it's like they're still a whole, something complete and uncleaved. It must be nice, to be whole. It must be so wonderful.

"Yes," Ptonomy says, his therapist demeanor dropping. "He took a lot from all of us. And that's why we can't let him take you, David. Do you understand? We all need you to stay with us and keep fighting."

"I know," David says.

"Do you?" Ptonomy challenges. "I don't think you do, not yet."

David breaths out a huff, amused even though he knows he shouldn't be. "It's been a while since you yelled at me."

"Well, you've always been good at pissing me off," Ptonomy says, in that friendly, furious way of his, and it feels good to hear it. To remember that he's been other things than pain and grief and guilt.

"Yeah, well, you lost your body, something's gotta keep you angry." David manages a smile, and the tight clench in his chest releases. Relief washes through him. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," Ptonomy says, and David knows he means it.

David takes a beat, drinks some water. Blows his nose. When he's ready, he nods.

"Let's talk about the cards," Ptonomy says, switching back into therapist mode. "It must have taken a lot of courage to do that. To reach out to Divad and Dvd, to let them share your body."

"I guess— it's their body, too, right?" David says, as lightly as he can. "I don't want to— I know what it's like, being— trapped. In myself. Watching. They're not— They don't deserve that."

Ptonomy pauses. "Do you want to talk about that? What it's like?"

He doesn't, god he doesn't. But something stops him from saying no. "Syd, she—" It hurts to say her name, but he plows on. "In the desert. She— she said that I liked— When I went to save Amy from Division 3—" He's shaking but he can't stop now. "I didn't want to go alone, I didn't want to hurt anyone, I just— She— He twisted everything up inside me and then we were there and he _used_ me and— And I couldn't— I screamed and I screamed and I—"

"David," Ptonomy says, urgent.

"I didn't like it, okay?" David shouts, too loud but he can't— "He made me, he _made me_ , why couldn't she understand that? Son of Sam?! She knows what he is and she still fired a gun at my head!"

Now he stops. He wraps his arms around his knees, feeling like a bomb just exploded out of him, unexpected and shattering. He's shaking again, breathing too fast, and he knows if the crown wasn't on, his powers would be exploding out of him like they had that day in the kitchen, like they do when he has nightmares and panic attacks. But nothing in the room is shaking but him.

"I'm sorry," David breathes, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"David," says Ptonomy, soberly. "What happened in the desert?"

"You know," David moans. Everyone knows what he did. 

"We know parts of it. And us not having the whole story is a big part of what's hurting you right now. So I think we need to talk about this. Can you do it?"

He doesn't know. He doesn't know. It's so much. But he can't keep it inside now that he's started. "I’ll try," he says.

"Take a moment. Catch your breath. Drink some water."

David does. He can do this. He has to do this.

"Tell me what happened," Ptonomy prompts. "Start from the beginning, from when I found you in the cafeteria. We met and you rushed off and then?"

"The lab," David says, closing his eyes to center himself in his memory. His memories of the past two weeks are shockingly clear compared to all the rest, created with his mind free of interference. But in some ways that makes them harder to face. "I went to the lab to use the amplification chamber. We found the desert. I— We knew we needed a plan. So we made one."

"You and your alters."

"We couldn't tell anyone," David says, remembering. "But we knew— we could see that we'd need help. So we left messages. Time delayed, so there'd be nothing for Farouk to know until it was too late."

"Smart," Ptonomy says.

David smiles briefly. "We could see flashes, pieces of time. We knew things would go wrong so we made the plan better. Then we left." He frowns. "But the desert was... strange. Confusing. Everything shifted and changed. The monastery, where Farouk's body was kept, it wouldn't stay put. We didn't know what to do."

"And then Syd came after you, right?"

"I left a note, but..." David shrugs. "She was mad. Kicked me in the shin."

"A note, not a message?"

David opens his eyes.

"You didn't include her in the plan?"

"No," David says. He still feels ashamed about this part, and angry. "I was mad at her. Not _her_ her, her from the future."

"Why?"

"Because she knew," David says, and it hurts. It hurts so much. "She knew about Amy and she didn't— She chose to let my sister, to let her—" He takes a breath. "If she'd warned me, I could have stopped it. I could have saved Amy and Ben and—" He shakes his head. "I know it wasn't her, it wasn't Syd now. But—"

"You couldn't help how you felt."

"I had to stop Farouk," David says, remembering how by the end that was the only thing that mattered. The only path left to him after wandering in confusion through a maze of choices. "Syd didn't want to. Or maybe she did, but—"

In the end, she wanted to stop David more. With a bullet to the head. They hadn't seen that when they saw the glimpses of the future in the amplification chamber. It was only sheer dumb luck that Lenny saved his life.

Syd almost killed him. She really tried to kill him.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, bringing him back. "So she found you, you got a kick. Then what?"

David closes his eyes again, centering himself back in the memory. "We wandered around, me and Syd, trying to find the monastery, but it kept moving. Then there was a storm, and a tent, so we went inside. And we were there, us from the future, or some future, I don't know. We were dead, skeletons. It was— I don't know. Syd said— she didn't think we were going to have a happy ending." He pauses. "In the morning she was gone."

"Down into the labyrinth."

"I didn't know," David says. "I looked everywhere, and then I finally reached the monastery. I went inside and—" God, this. "Oliver was there." He feels ill.

"It was a trap," Ptonomy says.

"I know," David says, hugging his knees. "But I was so— I had to find Syd, he had her and I couldn't— He said things, Farouk things, dared me to— I was just so angry. I was so angry about everything he'd done to me and Amy and I finally had him, I finally made him feel just a fraction, just the smallest taste of the pain and suffering that he made me feel for thirty years."

God, it had felt so good. It was awful and horrifying and it felt so good. And then it was ashes in his mouth, because it was a trick and he'd just tortured Oliver nearly to death.

He puts his head down on his knees. Then what happened? It's hazy after that. He felt sick, his whole body hot and sick and he— He stumbled outside and then— He can't—

"David went away for a while," says David's mouth, as his head picks itself up. "I had to take over."

Ptonomy's Vermillion, already in perfect posture, somehow manages to straighten further. "Please hold the card with your name on it."

David's hand picks through the cards and holds one. Divad. 

"Has that happened often?" Ptonomy asks. "Things become too much for David, so you take over?"

"It's my job to protect him," Divad says, with David's mouth. "I used to protect him a lot, back when I could. So yes, I took over until he was able to return. I'm sorry, David, I didn't mean to startle you."

And then just like that, David's back in control. His heart is racing. Shit, shit.

"Good one," grumbles Dvd's voice. "He just said he doesn't like that. Stop upsetting him!"

"David wasn't there for that part," Divad's voice defends.

"He doesn't remember how we used to work," Dvd says. "You can't just step in like that."

"You step in all the time," Divad says, annoyed. "It's not different just because our life is in danger."

"That's exactly why it's different!" Dvd says.

"David?" Ptonomy says, concerned. "What's going on?"

"Please stop arguing," David pleads. God, they're stressing him out more, not less.

Divad and Dvd fall quiet. "Sorry," Divad mumbles.

"David?" Ptonomy prompts again. "Stay with me."

"I'm here," David says, and drops the Divad card, fumbles for his own. He grabs it so hard that he crumples it, and panic spikes in his chest. He smooths it out but it's broken, it's ruined.

"It's just a card," Ptonomy says, gently. 

The Vermillion's hand reaches out and covers David's hand. It's cool to the touch, smooth and artificial. David suddenly misses Kerry.

It's just a card. It's just a card.

"What Divad did surprised you," Ptonomy observes. "Is that the first time you've been aware of him taking over like that?"

”Yes," David's still catching his breath. "Dvd said he— But I don't remember." They're not Farouk, they're not parasites, they're not trying to hurt him.

"David," says Divad's voice, regretful. 

"Please don't—" David tells him. He can't talk to him, not after that. Not for a while. That was— It was awful. 

"See?" Dvd sneers.

"You're not any better," David says, angrily. "I don't care if you're saving my life. I don't care. I need— You can't just—" They can't just take him over like he's a puppet anytime they like, on a whim, like he's nothing. If they do they're no better than Farouk.

"You said it was our body, too," Dvd says, defensively. 

"Now's not the time," Divad hushes him.

"David?" Ptonomy prompts again. 

"I think I need a break," David says.

"I think you're right," Ptonomy agrees, but doesn't leave.

David gets off the bed and walks around, pacing to settle himself. He gets a drink of water, splashes water on his face. He breathes. Breathing is always good. Slow, deep breaths. Calm. He's calm.

He leans back against the wall and winces as he bumps the edge of the crown. He leans forward, grimacing as pain shoots through his skull.

"Can you please take this thing off?" David pleads, angrily.

"I wish we could, but it's a condition of your therapy," Ptonomy says. "The Admiral won't risk you—"

"Ending the world, yeah yeah," David finishes, really done with that whole thing. "Why would I end the world? The only thing I want to end is Amahl Farouk." And himself, he wants to add, but doesn't. He doesn't want to as much as he did, anyway. He's a lot less sad and a lot more angry now. God, this whole thing, with Oliver and Syd and— 

"Come sit back down," Ptonomy says. It's not an order but it's more than a suggestion.

David heads to the bed, then turns away. He can't. He's too stirred up, there's too much in his head. In every sense. 

It's obvious that Ptonomy doesn't want to risk leaving him alone. David knows he's in a bad state, but he's run out of coping mechanisms and he doesn't know how to stop. In Clockworks, even before that, by the time he got this bad he would have already been involuntarily drugged into a stupor by the nearest medical professional, or tackled by cops who'd decided he was a danger, which he usually was. Without the drugs, without the crown, he would have already trashed everything around him. Without the crown he would have had an outlet, even if it was a destructive one he couldn't control.

God, what if this is what causes it? What if he just can’t stop himself? What if it’s as simple as that and he kills the world because he doesn’t know how to stop?

"Can you—" David says, voice tight as he paces helplessly. "Can you help me?" He's not used to asking for help, not with this. He's always managed on his own. Or at least he thought he did. 

"Who are you asking?" Ptonomy asks, and it's a good question.

"Anyone." David's still angry but he's desperate enough that he doesn't care. He hates losing control of himself to other people but it's even worse when he loses control of himself to himself. It's so stupid, it doesn't even make sense.

"Do you want to go away?" Divad asks.

"No," David says, horrified by the idea. "Just— just make it stop."

And then just like that, it stops. The shaking, the tension, the buildup of emotions threatening to explode. They’re not erased, he doesn't lose anything he's feeling, but all the strength falls out of them at once and the pressure’s gone. 

It's so sudden he falls to the floor. 

"David!" Ptonomy rushes over, as much as a Vermillion can rush. He kneels in front of David. "What just happened?"

David stares. "It stopped. He made it stop.”

"Show-off,” grumbles Dvd’s voice. 

Someone walks up to Ptonomy and kneels down beside him. It’s himself— It’s Divad, in his green shirt. He’s smiling. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that.”


	9. Day 3: David. David. David. David. David.

David. David. David. David. David.

David writes his name over and over. Slowly, deliberately. Cursive, lowercase, all capital letters. Ornate, with little flowers growing out of it, like an illuminated manuscript. 

"Don't you think you're being ridiculous about this?" Divad says, sitting on the bed, his arms crossed.

"Nope," David says, and keeps writing. Ptonomy left him with a notebook and a pen to put his thoughts down, and right now David has one thought, so that's what he's putting down. He's sitting in the chair, his feet resting on the edge of the mattress, the notebook propped against his thighs.

Dvd is visible, too, but he said that as tempting as it was, he had better things to do than listen to Divad grovel. He's been floating in the corner, sitting silent in a meditation pose for a while now, trying to use their power to break the crown. David's starting to think he'll never manage it. Whatever Farouk did to get out of his, he obviously made sure David — or any other part of him — wouldn't be able to do the same thing himself.

In a way, David almost admires the efficiency of the trap Farouk lured him into. Push him until he snapped, then make everyone believe that snapping was proof he was evil. Maybe even use all of that to make him evil, if he could manage it. David writes his name with little horns coming out of the big D. He draws a pointed tail coming out of the little d. Then he crosses it out angrily and flips to a clean page.

He starts over. David. David. David. David. David.

When Farouk's first trap failed to pay off, he set up another, just as efficient. David wants to kill himself, so Farouk has forced him to live, knowing that will be perhaps his greatest torture yet. David doesn't know, because he's forgotten most of the actual things Farouk did to him over his entire life. All he really remembers is the fear. That's the scar tissue Farouk left behind for him to keep. Layers and layers of it, piled up over the decades, all different flavors. The ultimate shit sandwich, served to him three times a day, every single day. He'll never get the taste out of his mouth.

David writes his name in sharp, angular letters, like nordic runes. He draws his name made out of little pointy knives. He draws a stick figure Farouk being stabbed through the head, with x-shaped eyes and a lolling tongue.

He furiously scratches out the stick figure. Then he rips out the page, crumples it into a tiny ball, and throws it at Divad.

"Hey!" Divad says, as the ball sails through him and bounces across the floor.

David starts over. David. David. David. David. David.

"You know, that really makes you look like a crazy person," Divad says.

"I am a crazy person," David replies, and keeps writing. "I'm three crazy people."

Divad opens his mouth, like he's about to argue against that, then shrugs. "True."

David glares at him and keeps writing. He switches back to careful cursive. He hasn't written in cursive for years. He suddenly remembers Amy helping him write out all the letters on wide-lined paper, guiding his hand through the loops.

A bubble of grief catches in his throat and pops. 

Divad sobers, leans towards him. "David—"

"No," David says, firmly. It's his grief for his sister. He's going to feel it, no matter how awful it is, no matter how much it hurts. It's his and he's going to feel it.

Divad gets annoyed again. "You know, you asked for my help. You can't get mad at me because I helped you when you asked for it."

"I absolutely can," David says. He switches back to all capitals, writing his name with smooth, even lines. DAVID. DAVID. DAVID. DAVID. DAVID. A silent shout of defiance to everything and everyone trying to erase him.

"I don't want to erase you," Divad insists. "That's the last thing I want, okay? I'm supposed to—"

"Protect me, yes, I know," David says. "You've done a great job, thanks so much."

In the corner, Dvd snorts.

"Don't you start," Divad grumbles at Dvd, then turns back to David. "Yeah, I failed. We both failed. And we feel like shit about it, thanks so much."

David keeps writing. It's very meditative, writing his name like this, over and over. Filling up the pages one by one. He's always looking for new ways to steady his emotions, to calm himself. He should have started doing this years ago. It wouldn't have made a single blessed bit of difference, but at least it would've been a hobby. There wasn't much to do in Clockworks besides watch other people drooling when he wasn't drooling himself.

Divad gets off the bed, tired of being ignored. He paces around the room, walking in steady, narrow circles, keeping to the space between Dvd and David.

"Look, you're feeling better, right?" Divad says, from across the bed. "Your head's clear, you can actually think about what's happened without going into another panic attack."

"Yes," David agrees, though he hasn't been too keen to test that theory. What he does know is that for the first time in a very long time, maybe ever, he doesn't feel like he has to screw his eyes shut and run full tilt just to get through whatever's happening to him. He can just sit and write his name and recognize the burning, toxic disaster that is his life, and it's fine. It's fine.

Closing his eyes and running full tilt only made him crash into everything anyway. 

Divad heaves a sigh, deep and deeply felt. David swears he can actually feel him fighting the urge to say 'I told you so.' Maybe he can. Divad and Dvd can hear his thoughts, there no reason why David shouldn't be able to hear theirs in return.

"You can't," Divad says.

"Why not?"

"Because protecting you from bad thoughts is the whole reason I'm here. If you know what I know, you'll know, so what's the point in having me?"

David stops writing so he can rub at his face. "That's—" He thinks about it. "Okay, that makes sense." He thinks about it some more. "So let me think about the bad thoughts. I'll be fine."

Dvd snorts again.

Divad stares at David with great feeling. 

"Shit," David sighs. "Okay, fine, I need you. But I'm still mad." He starts writing again, all lowercase. Childish. Maybe he has a right to be childish, when he lost his childhood to a monster. Lost his sanity, lost his mind, lost everything that Farouk could possibly make him lose. His bag of marbles strewn to the wind, tossed at random across the entire ocean, plop plop plop, never to be found again. 

"Careful," Divad warns.

"Don't 'careful' me," David says, grouchily. "You wanted me to think clearly? I'm thinking clearly. I see exactly how inescapably fucked I am. That's what you wanted, right? No illusions. Just cold, hard reality."

The cold, hard reality is that it doesn't matter if he strolls off a mental cliff, if he plunges back into despair. None of it matters because he's still as trapped as he's been since the day Farouk burrowed into his head when he was a baby. 

God, he is so inescapably fucked.

He flips to a clean page and starts again. David. David. David. David. David. Perfectly neat, the way his life will never, ever be.

"You know, you don't make it easy," Divad says. "I'm not saying any of this is your fault, but you sure as hell don't make it easy."

Dvd cracks open an eye. He clears his throat.

"You know," David says back, philosophically, "it's really saying something when the alter that's supposed to protect my body is the one protecting my mind from the alter that's supposed to protect my mind."

"We've had to adapt to a lot," Dvd says. "That shit beetle worked us over too, you know. He loved it when you made us. Three victims for the price of one. It gave him whole new ways to fuck with us. New colors to paint our screams."

David stops writing. Maybe, maybe... Maybe there are worse things than forgetting.

Dvd and Divad both stare at him with great feeling.

David brings his feet down to the floor and puts the notepad on the bed. "I'm sorry."

Shit. This is his fault, what they've suffered trying to protect him. He made them and trapped them in his head with him. They were tortured because of him. Shit.

"I'm sorry," David says again, tearing up. God, he can't even stop hurting people inside his own head. He should never have tried to survive what Farouk did to him. He should have given up and died the moment Farouk dug his claws in so deep they'd never come out again, whether he's physically inside of him or not. That's all David's doing now: hurting his alters, hurting his friends, making them suffer with him. He's so fucking selfish.

Divad and Dvd are suddenly close, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Okay, let's bring that all back a step," Divad says, worried. "We're you, remember? We're just parts of you. Farouk was gonna hurt you no matter what, so all you did was try to save us. To save something from the monster. You could have gone away and left us to deal with him but that's not what you did. You stayed. You fought him with everything you had. It just wasn't enough."

"That's not selfish, man," says Dvd. "That's the opposite of selfish. Stop beating yourself up because that's exactly what he wants you to do. He's probably watching all of this right now and shoving his hand down his pants because he gets off on your tears."

David recoils. "Oh, that's—! That's disgusting!" Ugh, now he really does need to forget something. Or pour bleach into his brain. He shudders.

Dvd puts up both middle fingers and points them at the ceiling, to where Farouk must be watching them from up above. Divad does the same. 

"Come on," Dvd urges.

Talk about childish. But David puts up his middle fingers all the same. Divad and Dvd smile at him, and David can't help but smile back.

The door opens and Kerry walks in. She stares at his raised hands and he quickly puts them down, tucks them under his thighs. 

”You hungry?" Kerry asks. She's carrying a tray, and David realizes it must be time for lunch. It's hard to keep track of time without any clocks or natural light.

"Ah, yeah, sure," David says. Divad and Dvd shift to make room as Kerry sits down on the bed and starts uncovering the dishes. Her hand pauses as she notices the notebook, and the litany of Davids written across the open page.

David feels the urge to curl up under the bed and die for a while, at least until his face stops burning. He really does look like a crazy person. But then that cat is well and truly out of the bag at this point. His lengthy conversation with himself must have been very entertaining for his audiences, however many he has by now. His friends; Farouk; the entirety of Division 3's command and control structure; international officials and government leaders; future historians of mutants and mental illness, assuming he never gets around to ending the world. God, he's not a mental patient, he's a zoo animal, a public exhibition.

All of this was a lot less of a problem for him when he was trapped in a multi-day panic attack and suicide attempt. Maybe he should go back. It'll be a vacation.

"Or don't," Divad mutters.

David glares at him, then looks down at his knees. He should just keep looking at his knees from now on. He won't have any embarrassing public conversations with his knees.

"So, um," Kerry says. Even she can't miss the painful awkwardness that's come over him. "Ptonomy says you're feeling better." 

"You don't have to pretend you haven't seen everything," David says, sparing her. 

Kerry lets out a relieved breath. "Yeah, everyone's watching from the lab."

"Great," David says, weakly. Now he has a whole new reason to kill himself. He won't be able to face anyone ever again. What's his best option? Self-immolation seems emotionally resonant. Or maybe something fast, to bring a quick end to this ongoing humiliation. Like a guillotine. 

Bad thoughts. He doesn't need Divad to warn him about wandering at the edge of that particular cliff. He needs to move on to something else.

"I wasn't sure you'd come back," he admits. 

There's a flash of hesitation on Kerry's face. She's a terrible liar, even worse than him. But she puts on a stubborn look. "Of course I was gonna come back. You still have to apologize to me. For being stupid."

David thinks back through the haze of panic and terror he was gripped in for the past few days. He's not sure what specifically she needs him to apologize for. Maybe for being a flaming wreck of a human being and getting everyone who gets close to him burnt. Probably that. "I'm sorry for being stupid," he says, and means it.

“Good,” Kerry says, satisfied. And apparently that’s that.

She really is a remarkable person. 

“So you’re feeling better?” she prompts again, as she hands him his plate. 

Lunch is beef teriyaki with sticky rice and bento-style vegetables. The carrot slices are carved into smiling suns and the radishes have cheerful faces. David would wonder if that was meant to cheer him up specifically, but the cafeteria staff are reliably whimsical. He starts eating. It’s good.

“Yeah, um.” He swallows, pokes at the rice. “Divad, um, Green?” He’s not sure if everyone is caught up on the name situation yet. They probably are, if they've seen and heard everything. “His thing is helping me with—“ He waves his fork in the general vicinity of his brain. “Avoiding dangerous thoughts, helping me manage my emotions so I don’t get, um, like before.”

“Wow,” Kerry says, genuinely impressed. “He can just do that?”

“Apparently,” David says. “I guess... If my mind was working the way it was supposed to, I’d be able to do it myself. But, you know.” He whirls the fork next to his ear, to indicate that he’s, well. 

Sick.

He frowns and forces himself to eat another piece of teriyaki.

He knows he should be grateful that Divad is able to help him. He is grateful. He doesn’t want to be unable to manage his own emotions. But the fact is that he can’t. Maybe the cumulative David Haller system can, but David the member of it is too completely fucked in the head to function like a normal human being. He's always struggled so hard to be in control of himself and he's always failed. He needs a whole other identity to do that for him, and in doing so remind him why he’s stuck down here in the first place.

Because he’s not normal. He’ll never be normal. He never even had a chance at normal. Which means... which means a lot of things, none of them good. 

Divad sighs.

“I know, I know,” David sighs back. “Sorry, Divad’s—“ He points his fork to her left.

Kerry stares where he’s pointing. It’s just empty space to her, of course. She frowns and turns back to him. “Does that mean you were having a dangerous thought just now?”

David shrugs. “Most of my thoughts aren’t exactly safe,” he admits, and musters a brittle smile. “That’s why I’m here. A danger to myself and others.”

“You’re here so you can get better,” Kerry says.

David isn’t in the mood to pretend. “I’m here until they can figure out what to do with me. Or until the shit beetle gets bored and decides to play a new game.”

Kerry snorts. “The what?”

“The shit beetle. That’s Dvd’s nickname for Farouk. Like a— Like a scarab? Because he’s from Egypt. He’s been using it for a while, it’s starting to stick.”

“Can I meet him?” Kerry asks. 

“Who, Farouk?”

“No, stupid. Dvd. I wanna meet him.” Kerry gives an indifferent shrug. “I mean, he can’t be all bad if he says stuff like that.”

Dvd looks at Kerry. David doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dvd curious about anyone before, beyond their status as a potential threat to David’s survival. 

“I’m not sure that’s—“ David begins.

“Aw, c’mon,” Kerry pleads. “I wanna meet both of them.”

Now all three of them are looking at David expectantly. “No,” he says, firmly. “No, this— I’m— I’m not comfortable with—“

“It’ll be good for us,” Dvd declares, eager now. “This crown’s being a real pain. Lemme stretch our legs.”

“It won’t be like before,” Divad promises. “No surprises. I’ll make sure things stay nice and calm. Besides, I think we all know you need to sit back and take a break.”

David puts his face in his hands. This isn’t happening. He’s not facing a rebellion in his own body.

“Our body,” Dvd reminds him.

“He’s right,” Divad agrees.

“I am extremely not comfortable with this,” David insists. This morning was enough of a shock. He doesn’t need another. 

When he looks up, he has three disappointed faces staring at him.

Kerry has her arms crossed. “How am I supposed to decide if I like them or not if I can’t look them in the eye when I interrogate them?”

Dvd blinks. “What?”

Divad laughs. “Oh, I like her. Come on, David, do you really want to stand in the way of this meeting of the minds?”

Without Divad's help, David knows he would already be having another panic attack. He can feel the edge of it, the shape of it, but it's blunted and far away. His pulse is a little fast but his heart isn't trying to race out of his chest. He knows he should be scared but he mostly isn't. Nervous, worried, but not scared.

He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out slowly.

"You're okay," Divad soothes. "I promise, it'll be fine. We used to do this all the time. We shared. You liked sharing."

"I don't want to— I don't want to go away," David says. Whatever happened in the desert, after Oliver. He doesn't want to do that.

"No one's going away," Divad says. "If you want, you can stay where you are and we'll be in there with you. Like when we wrote our names, and when I talked to Ptonomy. But— I think it'll be easier for you if you step out."

"That's not going away?" David asks.

Divad leans forward, closing the space between them. "You only go away when things are too much for you. Really, really too much. This is just... it's like astral projecting."

Astral projecting. He's used to that. Sometimes he's felt like he's spent more time outside of his body than in it, these past weeks.

He does need to take a break. Maybe they're right, maybe this will be good for them.

"Okay," he says. He puts the plate down on the floor, rubs his palms against his legs. "Okay, what do I do?"

Divad reaches out to him. "Take my hand."

"But you're not real."

"Take it anyway."

David closes his eyes, breathes, breathes. He can do this. It's just like astral projecting. He knows how to do this.

He opens his eyes without opening his eyes, and reaches for Divad while his hand remains limp in his lap. Divad's hand grasps his, real and solid, and helps him onto the bed.

David reaches up and touches his head. The crown is gone. He knows it's still there, on his actual head, but like the panic attack his sense of it is blunted and far away. The crown is gone and so is the low, constant, intrusive pain. He hadn't even realized how much it was taking out of him until now. His eyes well up with relief. 

Divad wraps an arm around his shoulder. "See? Just sit back, relax. Let someone else do the work for a while."

In the chair, David's body opens its eyes. "Hi," Dvd says, and grins.


	10. Day 3: Weird and creepy.

Everyone is sad. They're so sad all the time, and Kerry hates it.

Kerry doesn't do sad. When she gets upset, she punches things until she feels better. She's punched a lot of things since yesterday and it helped, mostly. But everyone hanging around the lab and watching David and being sad makes her upset all over again.

Even Clark was sad when he visited, and after what he did yesterday, Kerry wasn't sure he was even capable of feeling sad about David. He didn't actually apologize or anything, but he asked if there was anything he could do to help, any resources Division 3 could give them to speed David's recovery along. Cary politely but firmly told him thank you, but no, they already have everything they need.

Kerry hopes he's right.

When David woke up late yesterday afternoon, she hoped that he would start getting better right away. But mostly he cried and talked to himself a little and cried some more, which made Syd and Cary cry, which made Kerry need to go away and punch things again.

Her fists are actually getting sore. She'll have to switch to kicking things if David doesn't get his butt moving and get better fast.

David's session with Ptonomy this morning was... confusing. He seemed better, but then he got so upset, the most upset she's ever seen him maybe, even worse than when he was trying to hurt himself. He talked about Syd trying to shoot him, which was news to Kerry. Nobody tells her anything, they just assume she knows stuff because they tell Cary everything. She didn't always, even when she was resting inside him, and now she's never inside him anymore so she definitely doesn't know all the things he hears.

She was glad she got to hear about what happened in the desert from David, even if he wasn't telling her about it directly. She's glad that his stupid plan actually ended up making sense. It was probably only any good because his alters helped him make it, because even though he's super powerful, David's always been kinda useless. They tried to save him when he was on the run from Clockworks but he hid from them, so they had to rescue him from Division 3, and then he kept messing up the memory walks and the MRI, and then they had to rescue him again, and then they had to rescue him _again_ , and then he got snatched and only turned up after a whole year, and he couldn't remember anything. 

Useless.

So yeah, that whole desert plan was obviously the work of Green and Yellow — no, Divad and Dvd. Kerry's already decided they're the brains of David's system, the way Cary’s the brains of hers.

When Divad took David over, everyone in the lab gasped, even her. He apologized but he scared David as much as he scared everyone else. And then Syd and Cary were freaking out and David was freaking out more than everyone combined, pacing around like he was about to explode.

And then he fell down, and suddenly he was okay.

Well, not okay. He was talking to himself and angry and really upset, still. But he wasn't trying to climb the walls anymore. He sat down and talked to Ptonomy some more, and then Ptonomy gave him a notebook and a pen and told him to rest, and that if David was feeling up to it they would pick things up again after lunch.

Since then, all David's done is write in the notebook and argue with himself. Cary seems relieved about how things went but Syd looks like she’s going to fall down herself. Kerry hopes it's because she feels bad for trying to kill David. It’s bad enough that she wants to kill him because he's sick; now it turns out she already tried to shoot him because she thought he was evil.

David's not evil. That's stupid. He's too useless to be evil.

Divad and Dvd, though... They might still be evil, even if they are just parts of David. They're not useless, anyway. Divad was pretty rude, scaring David like that, taking over without warning him. And all they know for sure about Dvd is that he blew up the fake interview room in Division 3 and really enjoyed doing it. So neither of them are looking great right now. It's no wonder David's mad at them. 

Kerry's mad at them, too. She'd march right down there and punch Divad in the face if it didn't also mean punching David in the face. And she's not going to punch David. He's already crying all the time. She's not going to give him something else to be sad about.

Which means she should probably stop avoiding him. 

Before Ptonomy left, David asked Ptonomy where she was, and Ptonomy had to lie and say she was busy helping Cary with Melanie and Oliver. Even through the monitor Kerry saw him flinch and look sadder. She knows that David feels bad about Oliver, but she doesn't think it's only that.

It's just...

Syd's known David the longest out of all of them. She knew David for a whole year in Clockworks. But Syd didn't know about any of this. David didn't even know about any of this, and this alter thing has been happening to him his whole life.

Even if Divad and Dvd are just other parts of David, they're still strangers. It creeps her out, thinking that they've been inside him all this time and no one knew. Even if they wanted David to know and Farouk stopped them, it's weird and creepy. No one seems to know what to do about them, and it's their fault that no one knows what to do about David.

Maybe Syd's right. Maybe he's never going to be the David they knew, not ever again. But if Kerry lets herself think about that, it hurts so much that even punching things doesn't help.

She's not gonna give up. She's not gonna be a coward. 

"I'm gonna go to the cafeteria to get David lunch," Kerry announces, and rushes out before anyone can react.

When she's far enough away from the lab that no one will see her, she leans against a wall and works up her courage. 

She has to stay with David so that David doesn't try to hurt himself again. She doesn't understand why he wants to hurt himself so much. There's no one making him, not even Farouk. The only thing everyone wants to do is help him, but he won't let them.

Useless. Stupid.

He'd better apologize when she sees him. She needs him to say he's sorry for hurting himself and trying to die. If he doesn't, she'll never forgive him. She'll leave and stay away and won't come back even if he misses her. Even if he cries.

She stands in the cafeteria and stares at the river of food, all the dishes carried along on their little boats. She doesn't know what David likes to eat besides waffles. She's trying really hard with all this body stuff but it's creepy and weird. She has to chew things and then let them go into her throat, and then they just sit for hours and hours, turning into mush. She can feel them inside her, heavy and unnatural, and all she wants to do is get them out of herself, but that's the grossest part of the whole thing.

But she's outside of Cary now. She can't get everything she needs from him anymore. 

Because of Farouk.

Maybe she does understand why David tries to hurt himself even though no one's making him. Farouk is forcing David to live just like he's forcing Kerry to do body stuff. Maybe it's just as awful for him to live as it is for her to eat.

But she has to eat stuff. And he has to live. So if they're both stuck dealing with things they don't want to do, maybe the only thing they can do is deal with them together. That's how it's always been for her and Cary. She wouldn't make Cary deal with anything alone.

She chooses two plates of the beef teriyaki because she likes the cheerful vegetables. Maybe if David eats some smiles he'll smile again. That's probably not how food works but it makes more sense than mashing up a bunch of plants and animals and dissolving them in a pouch. 

When she reaches David's cell, she pauses outside of it, listening through the little window. David's still talking to himself, to Divad and Dvd. She wishes she could hear what they're saying back to him. Maybe it wouldn't be so weird and creepy if she could.

When there's a pause in the conversation, she opens the door. She finds David holding up his middle fingers and smiling. The moment he sees her, he hides his hands and ducks his head, embarrassed.

Kerry decides not to ask. ”You hungry?" she asks, and brings in the tray.

"Ah, yeah, sure," David says. He watches her as she sits on the bed and uncovers the tray. There's a notebook on the bed, the one he's been writing in. She's been curious about it. She thought maybe he wrote something about how he's feeling, about what's happened to him. Maybe something about Divad and Dvd.

Instead it's his name, written over and over. Just 'David,' over and over, for _pages_.

She has no idea where to even start with that, so she ignores it. When she looks up, David's staring down at his knees. 

"So, um," Kerry says, trying to find some way back to how they were before everything went wrong yesterday. "Ptonomy says you're feeling better." 

"You don't have to pretend you haven't seen everything," David says, miserably.

Kerry sighs. There's no point in lying about it. "Yeah, everyone's watching from the lab."

"Great," David says, even more miserably.

This isn't going very well so far. Maybe she made a mistake, coming back now. Maybe David doesn't want her here. Maybe he needs more time.

"I wasn't sure you'd come back," David admits.

Kerry startles, and then she's kinda mad. Did he really think she was just gonna abandon him? "Of course I was gonna come back. You still have to apologize to me. For being stupid." He's so stupid, how does he even breathe?

David finally looks her in the eyes. "I'm sorry for being stupid," he says, and means it.

“Good,” Kerry says, satisfied that he knows it, at least. And she got her apology so she can forgive him now. “So you’re feeling better?” she asks, and hands him his plate.

They eat, neither of them with any enthusiasm. Somehow that makes Kerry feel better about having to put more stuff into her throat. Ugh.

“Yeah, um. Divad, um, Green? His thing is helping me with—“ David waves his fork at his head. “Avoiding dangerous thoughts, helping me manage my emotions so I don’t get, um, like before.”

“Wow,” Kerry says, genuinely impressed. “He can just do that?” It's like he has a whole new mutant power. Mutant emotional regulation. 

“Apparently,” David says. “I guess... If my mind was working the way it was supposed to, I’d be able to do it myself. But, you know.” He waves his fork at his head again, then frowns, then goes back to reluctantly eating.

Kerry reluctantly eats, too.

“I know, I know,” David sighs, suddenly. “Sorry, Divad’s—“ He points his fork to her left.

Kerry stares where he’s pointing, but there's nothing beside her. Does that mean Divad is sitting beside her? Maybe she can punch him after all. But then she thinks that maybe she shouldn't punch him, if he's David's mutant emotional regulation. Wait, that means— She frowns and turns back to David. “Does that mean you were having a dangerous thought just now?”

David shrugs. “Most of my thoughts aren’t exactly safe,” he admits, and musters a brittle smile. “That’s why I’m here. A danger to myself and others.”

Okay, that settles it. She can't punch Divad, at least not until David is better. “You’re here so you can get better,” Kerry reminds him. He seems to need a lot of reminding about that.

But the reminder only makes David grumpier. “I’m here until they can figure out what to do with me. Or until the shit beetle gets bored and decides to play a new game.”

Kerry snorts. “The what?”

“The shit beetle. That’s Dvd’s nickname for Farouk. Like a— Like a scarab? Because he’s from Egypt. He’s been using it for a while, it’s starting to stick.”

Shit beetle. It's the funniest thing Kerry's heard in ages. Even Cary hasn't made any jokes in days, and he always has something to make her laugh, even if it's just an endless rainbow scarf tucked into his shirt pocket. “Can I meet him?” 

“Who, Farouk?”

“No, stupid. Dvd. I wanna meet him.” Not that she has to or anything. But if he's funny maybe he's not awful either. Maybe they're both okay, these secret David strangers. “I mean, he can’t be all bad if he says stuff like that.”

David looks to her other side like there's someone there. Is Dvd on the bed, too? Weird and creepy.

“I’m not sure that’s—“ David begins.

“Aw, c’mon,” Kerry pleads. “I wanna meet both of them.” She has to meet them, if they're going to be hanging around her like this.

“No,” David says, firmly. “No, this— I’m— I’m not comfortable with—“ He stops, listening, then he puts his face in his hands. “I am extremely not comfortable with this."

It seems like Divad and Dvd want to meet her, too. Kerry crosses her arms in solidarity. “How am I supposed to decide if I like them or not if I can’t look them in the eye when I interrogate them?”

David continues listening to whatever his alters are saying, and then he visibly relents. He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out slowly. "I don't want to— I don't want to go away," he says, quietly. 

Kerry waits. She can tell he's not talking to her. If this is something David's going to be doing for the rest of his life, she has to get used to it.

"That's not going away?" David asks, even more quietly. He looks wary, stares at the space where he said Divad was sitting. After more listening, he comes to a decision and puts his plate on the floor. "Okay. Okay, what do I do?" He frowns. "But you're not real."

And then David closes his eyes. And then—

And then David opens his eyes, and he grins. Kerry wanted David to smile, but this is definitely not David smiling.

"Hi," says not-David.

Kerry silently panics. What did Ptonomy do when Divad showed up? The cards. Where are the cards? "Uh. Please, uh, hold the card with your name on it," she tells not-David.

Not-David smirks and looks around, finds the cards. He holds one up between two fingers.

"Dvd," she reads. 

She can tell a lot about a person just by looking at them. Dvd might be a part of David, but he's definitely not David. He meets her eyes directly, challenging her, so confident in himself that he comes off as arrogant. All the grief and guilt and sadness are gone. She didn't think she would miss them, but she does.

"Hi," she says back, holding out her hand. "I'm Kerry Loudermilk."

"Oh, I know," Dvd says, taking her hand. He squeezes it hard when he shakes, then lets go and leans back, judging her. "We've been watching all of you for a while now."

Kerry wasn't sure what she expected, but it wasn't this. If Dvd is going to be aggressive, she can be aggressive right back. "And you've been hiding for a while now."

Dvd narrows his eyes, annoyed. That's one hit for her. "We weren't hiding," he defends. "We were waiting for the right time."

"You were being sneaky," she shoots back. "You were spying on us."

"Yeah? Well you've been spying on David," Dvd accuses. "He doesn't like that, you know. You're upsetting him, putting him on display like he's some kind of zoo animal."

And that's one hit for Dvd. "I don't like it either," she admits.

"Then do something about it."

"I can't," Kerry says. "It's not up to me."

"Weak," Dvd sneers. "Here I thought you were some kinda super strong badass."

Ugh, two hits. "And here I thought you were," she shoots back. 

Two for two. Divad bares his teeth at her and launches himself to his feet, walks around the cell. He swings his arms, claps his hands together. He doesn't even move like David, though if she squints it does look kinda like what he does when he's really upset. There's a lot of energy in both, but Dvd's is tense, focused, and David's is loose and chaotic.

He really is a different person. Holy shit, there really are two other people inside of David. "Holy shit," she says aloud, unable to stop herself.

Dvd looks at her like she's the weird one. 

"So you wanna interrogate me, huh?" Dvd challenges. "Ask away, I've got nothing to hide."

"Oh yeah?" Kerry challenges back. She stands up and faces him. "Okay. Okay. So, um—" Damn it, she's the one who punches people. Clark's the one who asks probing questions. How does she need Clark right now? What is happening? "Why are you so angry?"

"Why do you think?" Dvd sneers. "Next?"

Ugh! Three-two. "Are you gonna hurt David?"

That makes him falter, but not enough. "Don't be stupid," he says. "I'm the one who keeps him safe when no one else can. I do a hell of a better job than any of you people." Then he rounds on nothing. "No, shut up! I finally have the chance to give these useless idiots a piece of my mind and I'm gonna do it." He turns back to Kerry. "You think you're helping him, putting him through this? You're doing exactly what that shit beetle wants. You're torturing him!" He turns back to the air. It must be Divad. Or maybe David? Both? "Shut up! Get away from me!"

Dvd struggles against nothing, and Kerry doesn't know what to do. 

"Sanctimonious moralizing asshole!" Dvd yells, and pushes whoever it is away. Then he grabs at the crown. "Do you have any idea how much this thing hurts? God, how does David put up with you people? You know what? I'm done. I'm getting this off right now, and getting him away from all of you!"

Dvd starts clawing at the crown, trying to pull it off. He screams against the pain but he doesn't stop. He doesn't stop and it doesn't matter what he says, he's hurting David _right now_.

Kerry rushes up to Dvd and punches him square across the jaw. He goes down hard and falls to the floor, out cold.

Shit. David! Oh god, she just—

There's a rush of footsteps as everyone arrives at once: Cary, Syd, Clark, Ptonomy. But it's too late. The damage is already done.

Three-three with a knockout punch. But Kerry knows that everyone's the loser in this fight.


	11. Day 3: You call this help?

"Stay calm," Divad says, as David paces back and forth, frantic. He's freaking out, just as bad as he was before Divad started managing him again. "Everything's going to be fine."

"It's not," David says, between too-fast breaths. "It's not. It's really not."

"I thought you had this," Dvd hisses at Divad. 

"This is your fault!" Divad hisses back. "Look what you did to him!"

On the bed, David's body is strapped down again, back in full restraints. Every time David calms down enough to look at himself, he starts freaking out all over again. It probably doesn't help that there was blood, or that David's jaw has a nasty bruise that's swelling up. It probably doesn't help that there are people hovering around his unconscious body and shaking their heads and acting like the world just ended.

It probably doesn't help that Kerry is crying and that Syd looks like she's going to be sick.

The blood's gone, anyway. Cary cleaned that up when he checked the crown and checked David's head. He's holding an icepack to David's jaw now, trying to bring down the swelling before it gets too bad. Dvd is outside of their body with the others again, but he can still feel the power of Kerry's right hook. He rubs his jaw, glad for once that he doesn't have to be the one in charge of their body. Though right now no one's in charge.

"I just needed more time," Dvd mutters. If he'd just had more time, he could have got that stupid crown off for good. He couldn't break it from the inside so he had to get at it from the outside, with hands.

"God, for once in your life will you just give up?" Divad yells, then curses as him yelling only makes David even more stressed out.

They can hear David's hamster-wheel thoughts, cycling over and over. He's terrified, convinced that he'll never escape this situation. That all of his friends will write him off as a lunatic, as crazy, as a worthless madman too dangerous to ever let see the sun again. And when he's not thinking that, he's thinking how even if he somehow gets out of this, he'll never escape Farouk, he'll never stop being tortured. Farouk will torture him and torture him until his mind breaks into countless fragments and one of those fragments is finally crazy enough to end the world and he kills everyone. And David can't bear that, he can't bear any of that, he just wants to die, please, please, let him die.

Dvd wishes he didn't have to hear any of that. He really, really wishes he didn't.

"I was trying to protect him," Dvd insists. This isn't his fault. It's the shit beetle's fault, like always. "This place isn't helping him, it's making him worse."

Divad rounds on him, furious. "Right now the only thing making David worse is you. You know what? You wanted to be in charge so bad? Be in charge. This is your mess, the last thing David needs right now is to have to clean it up."

"Fine, I will," Dvd says. Not that he'll able to do anything until their body is ready to wake up again, or that he'll be able to do them any good when he's stuck in a body that can't even move because it's strapped down. He rubs his jaw, braces himself. Damn it, this is gonna hurt.

When he opens their eyes, it's later, and yeah, their jaw is killing him and so is their head. He doesn't know how later it is because there's nothing in this place that gives any sense of time. It's a prison designed to torture the prisoner, and that's just more proof that Dvd made the right choice in trying to get David out of here. It's not just Farouk trying to drive David crazy, it's this place, it's these people who claim to be his friends. Parasites, that's what they are, using him for his powers, throwing him away the moment he's too much trouble for them. They're all the same, all of them. If Divad wasn't so far up his own ass, he would see that and help him instead of letting these people fuck David over again and again.

But anyway, Dvd knows it's later because he doesn't hear anyone crying or talking. He can't see much with their head strapped down like this. He looks as far as their peripheral vision allows, and notices someone.

It's one of those weird robot things. Vermillions. It must be Ptonomy's. Ugh, the last thing Dvd needs right now is another sanctimonious moralizing asshole. He gets enough of an earful from Divad all the time.

The Vermillion notices he's awake and shifts closer. It stares at them, right into their eyes, then leans back.

"I'd ask you to hold up a card, but..." says Ptonomy.

"Ha ha," Dvd sneers. "Very funny. Lemme out of this."

"Still Dvd, right?" Ptonomy guesses. "I'm sorry, you're not going anywhere. We can't trust you not to hurt David."

"I'm not the one who punched him in the face," Dvd says. "You people are the ones hurting him with this stupid crown. Keeping him stuck in this prison cell, treating him like an animal." Pathetic. "You know what the worst part is? You all think you're so much better than him, that you know what he needs, and you're wrong."

"And you know what David needs?"

"I'm the only one who's ever known what David needs," Dvd says, and yeah, it feels good to say it, especially to one of David's so-called friends. "I'm the only one who's always had his back, no matter what happened. All those people who claimed to love us? They abandoned us, over and over. They found a hole to stick us in and walked away. They try to kill us because they can't deal with what we are."

"You don't think David needs help?"

Dvd laughs. "You call this help? You're just that shit beetle's puppets, dancing on a string. Torturing David for him while he sits around being pleased with himself. And you call yourself his friends?" He scoffs. "We know what you’ve been thinking about him since we came back. None of you trusts him. You’re all afraid of him, all of you. It’s no wonder it was so easy for the shit beetle to trick you into turning against him. He doesn’t belong here and if we’d just left right away everything would be fine."

"You wanted David to leave?" Ptonomy asks. "After you got back from the desert?"

If only they had. "We had a plan," Dvd says. "We all agreed. We made David agree to it. After that blonde thing tried to kill us, he finally saw that there was no reason to stay. It was time to get away from all of this bullshit and go somewhere else."

"Where did David want to go?"

"I dunno, a farm or something. It sounded boring but whatever, I don't care where we go. He just wanted to be somewhere quiet, away from all you people. But you wouldn’t let him."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So what was the plan?"

"Simple," Dvd says, proudly. It was mostly his plan and it was a good one. "Stay long enough to watch Farouk fry, and if he tried anything, kill him. Turn him into dust. We know how to do it, the shit beetle used our body to do it. Give him a taste of his own medicine."

"So why didn’t you? Kill him? Why wait at all?"

Dvd grunts in frustration. "David kept changing the plan. He wouldn’t stop obsessing over Syd. You know, I didn’t mind her as long as she made him happy. But ever since we got back it’s been nag nag nag. Stop Farouk, help Farouk, don’t leave, go away. Then just when we’re finally about to smash his head in, she comes up with a gun and starts rambling on about how David’s gonna end the world, and then she shoots us! Fuck her! It was kind, what we did to her, making her forget whatever bullshit mind control the shit beetle did to her. I wish I could forget what he did to me, to David, to all of us. But I can’t. I have to remember because if I don’t know all the bad things that happened to David, I won’t be able to stop them before they happen again."

Shit. That was a lot. He didn't mean to say all of that. And now their throat is tight and there's water in their eyes.

"That sounds like a lot of pain to hold on to," Ptonomy says.

Dvd doesn't cry. David is the one who cries. But now he's the one in their body and their body wants to cry. Dvd won't let it win.

"Well, I have to," Dvd says, roughly. "That’s what I’m here for, that’s why David needs me. I keep him safe, I protect him from anything that tries to hurt him."

"You haven’t been able to protect him from himself."

That hits harder than Kerry's fist.

"David’s suicidal, and not for the first time," Ptonomy continues. "Do you really think you’re helping him by taking him away from his treatment? What if you'd succeeded? What if you got him away, but all that did was give him the opportunity to do what he’s been trying to do for days?"

"No," Dvd insists. "No. I wouldn’t— That wouldn't happen."

"Are you sure about that?"

"No!" Dvd says, loudly. "No, I wouldn't let him! I know, I know he tried before, but I stopped him. Even with that shit beetle always in the way, I got rid of that stupid cord. I saved us!"

"You couldn’t stop him from putting that cord around his neck in the first place. You couldn’t stop him from stepping off that chair."

There are tears leaking out of their eyes. Dvd squeezes them shut.

"What makes you think you could stop him again?" Ptonomy continues, his musical, calm tones slicing through Dvd's guts like a knife.

"I'd stop him," Dvd says, gritting their teeth.

"How? By controlling him, the way Farouk controlled him? By making him a prisoner inside his own body? You’d be just like Farouk, torturing him, making him suffer because you won’t let him get the help he needs."

More tears, flowing out hot and fast no matter how much Dvd tries to stop them. Their stomach hurts and their chest hurts and everything is awful. It's been so long since Dvd was in control of their body for more than a few minutes at a time. All he's been able to do for years is step in to save their life. He forgot what it was like to live in their body, to be at the mercy of it. It's no wonder David hates being alive if he always feels this way.

"You're right," Ptonomy says, softer now. "We did let David down. We thought we helped him but all we did was leave him vulnerable to more pain. I think you know exactly what that feels like, and you know how much we need to make up for that now."

"I just want--" Dvd gasps, their throat tight. "I just want to make it stop." It's been so hard, so hard. David's hurting all the time and Dvd didn't know what else to do. He just wants David to stop hurting.

"That’s what we all want," Ptonomy says. "But there’s only two ways to make David's pain stop, and that’s either to let it win, or to face it and help him through it. I don’t think you’re a coward. So what I want to know is: are you gonna step up and work with us, or are you gonna leave David vulnerable to more pain?"

Dvd doesn't want to let the pain win, to let the shit beetle win. He can't stand that. But staying, letting David suffer in this place, letting them hurt him, how can he stand that either? But god, David wants to kill himself so much. It's worse than it was when David hung himself. It's so much worse. Farouk's threats truly are the only thing keeping him alive, and that hurts the most out of all of this. That the shit beetle is doing what Dvd is supposed to do. Dvd wants to kill him a billion times over for that. He wants to turn every speck of his body to dust, every atom, and then stomp on the dust until even the atoms don't exist anymore.

God, he hates this. He hates all of this. He wishes they'd run away and never looked back.

"Okay," Dvd spits out. "Fine. You win."

The Vermillion leans back like its relieved. "Thank you, Dvd. You're doing the right thing."

"Wait," Dvd says, because he has to try. "The crown. Please, it hurts him so much."

"I'm sorry," Ptonomy says, and maybe he actually means it. "I know it hurts him. But it's not forever, even if that’s what you and David are afraid of. If David gets better, he won’t need it anymore. If you want to make all the pain stop, then help David get better. Will you do that? For David?"

More tears, and still he can’t stop them. "Yes. For David."

The Vermillion goes quiet for a few seconds. Then it reaches out and opens the restraints. Dvd fumbles out of the bed the moment their body is freed. He stumbles backwards until he's in the corner, as far away from Ptonomy as he can get. It's only when he catches their breath that he realizes he's standing in the same spot that David is, that he's standing through him.

David is curled up in a tight ball, blocking everything out. He's gone away again, lost in his despair where nothing can reach him. Dvd looks and finds Divad sitting a few feet away, his head bent with grief. 

Dvd sits down between them.

"I'm sorry," Dvd says, to both of them. Even if David can't hear him right now. He's sorry for making things worse.

"He's right, you know," Divad says, his voice rough even though he doesn't have a body making things hard to say. "We can't do this on our own. We can't protect him. Again."

"I know," Dvd accepts. "But I don't-- David trusts people, but I don't. I can't."

"You have to," Divad says, looking up to meet his eyes. "We have to. These people are the only chance David has."

"Shit." Dvd knows he's right. He knows. But it's so hard. Not trusting people is the only way he's been able to keep David safe. He's always been on the alert, waiting for the betrayal to come, waiting for their warm smiles to turn cold and angry. It never bothered him before that he was always right.

He doesn't want to be right, not this time. He truly, truly doesn't want to be right. Because if he is right, and David's friends abandon him like everyone else has, then even Farouk's threats won't be enough to keep David alive. And then--

No. No, Dvd's not gonna let that happen. Not again, not if there's anything he can do to stop it. He's not giving up. He's never given up, not ever, not once, no matter how bad things got. And he knows how bad things got, because Farouk's favorite way to torture him was to make him remember all the things that David forgot.

"You take over for a while," Dvd tells Divad. "I got this."

Divad doesn't argue. Dvd steps out, and Divad steps in. David's body gets up and goes back to the bed, sits down, and starts quietly talking to Ptonomy about what's happening to David now.

Dvd can touch David again, so he does. He gets as close as he can and wraps his whole body around David, holding him with all of himself, willing him to get better and come back to them. They've both had to do that for David so many times, so many, many times. Farouk would torture David until he broke, and then leave the shattered mess for Divad and Dvd to frantically try to piece back together. And then he would do it again, and again, and again, and--

Dvd hates how trapped they are, still, after everything they've done to escape. He understands David’s despair. His anger is all he has to protect him from feeling it himself. 

They have to do this. They have to get David through the pain, whatever it takes, no matter how hard it is. They have to bring him back and help him get better. They only just got David back. They can’t let Farouk take him away from them again.


	12. Day 3: She missed so much of him.

It’s more than strange, hearing David calmly talking about himself, about the damage he’s suffered, the state he’s in. But he's not David at all. He’s Divad. 

David’s gone away, apparently. He does that when things are too much for him. He goes away, and Divad or Dvd takes over until he’s ready to come back. 

Syd's finally starting to understand who David is. Or more importantly, what David is, why he is the way he is. This system he’s a part of. It’s like he was a three-legged stool and Farouk took away the other two legs to see if he could stand on his own. He couldn’t, of course, but he wobbled around for a long time before he finally fell over. 

David couldn’t remember that he was only part of a person, part of a system. But when he fell in love with her, he tried to make a new system with her, to fill the missing parts of himself back in. He made them into a binary star, the two of them orbiting around each other, never touching but tethered by the gravity of their love. 

But she’s not one leg in a stool. She’s whole unto herself as she always has been. And the harder he leaned on her, the more she tried to make him stand on his own. She just wanted him to be like her: whole and stable and able to bear the weight of things. 

He wasn’t. He couldn’t. All the weight did was make him fall faster, to make more mistakes, to spin in confusion until—

She's hurt so much, watching him. She's hurt in every way she could hurt, so much she's barely been able to speak. She would have drunk herself into a stupor and stayed there, but she needed to be sober so she could understand what she was watching, what she was seeing and hearing. She searched for David for a year, knew him for a year before that, and still she missed so much of him. So much.

Divad has assured them that David will come back. David always comes back eventually, he never leaves them for longer than he has to. Because David has a role, too, in this system of his. He's the one who suffers for them. Divad and Dvd protect David’s mind and his body, and in return David takes as much of their pain as he can. He takes it and takes it until he can’t take any more, and then he comes back and takes it again. 

It’s unspeakably cruel, what Farouk did to them, what he turned David into. He tortured David until his mind shattered, and then took the pieces of him and turned them into his twisted poetry. He made David’s protectors unable to protect him, and used David’s suffering against the very system that formed to save him from it. Farouk did all of this to a helpless, frightened child whose only crime was being fathered by a man he never knew. 

There aren’t words to describe that kind of monstrosity. There aren’t words in any book. It’s too enormous. 

She can’t forget what David did to her, but she understands how it happened. She still doesn’t know everything, but she knows the rough steps that brought him to the place where he thought it was okay to reach into her mind and change it. She knows the desperation that drove him to seek her out and try to prove their love was still true, and in doing so destroyed it. 

It’s better off dead, that love. She was never what he truly needed, because no one could be that but the other parts of him. 

She still loves him, her David. She might even love him more, knowing the truth of him. But he’s so broken and so far away from her, and she doesn’t know if he’ll ever come back. If he even can. She believes Divad, she knows David will open his eyes again. But she doesn’t know what hope there is for him. She doesn’t want it to be too late, like it was for her mother, but she’s so afraid. What if no matter what they do, no matter how hard they fight, they lose him anyway?

All this, and they might lose him anyway.

Divad has been talking to them about what David needs from them, the changes they have to make so he can start to get better. Division 3's methods have been hard on David, and some of them have definitely made things worse. Allying with Farouk. Threatening to kill David if he didn't get better. Strapping him down in a prison cell. Drugging him when he got upset. Treating him like a thing in a cage and putting him on display. The crown, which hurts him, even though it's the only thing keeping him alive, the only thing stopping him from killing himself with a single thought.

They can’t change everything, but they can do better. David is a thing in a cage to Division 3, but he shouldn't have been to his friends, to the people who said they care about him. They should have protected him, fought on his behalf against the organization they're living at the heart of, but Dvd was right. They were too afraid of David to trust him, to love him the way they should have. They let Division 3 shove him out of sight because that was easier for everyone. They watched, but they still turned away.

Syd turned away, at the beginning. She gave herself the luxury of that. If it wasn't for Ptonomy...

Ptonomy's finished talking to the Admiral and has approval to transfer David out of the cell that's been making him worse. It's the strangest patient transfer she's ever seen, because the patient is currently invisible and insensate, curled up in a ball of despair, tended to by one of his caretakers while the other walks his body up to the lab.

She's not sure how that works. She's not sure how David works. His whole situation is so unusual. Syd doesn't care about normal, but David is so one-of-a-kind that there's no case study, no reference material, no expert who can help them. He's an mutant identity system that forgot parts of himself because of a mental parasite that still won't let him go. And knowing all of that doesn't even begin to fix what's wrong with David.

If he can be fixed. If he can get better. If, if, if.

Cary's lab has already been overtaken by beds and cots, but Syd and the others get to work rearranging it to make a space for David to recover in, to live in. He needs privacy, but they can't let him feel like he's being hidden away. He needs to know he belongs with them, he needs reminders that he's still part of the world they're trying so hard to coax him back to.

Ptonomy couldn't convince the Admiral to turn off the surveillance for the lab, so they set up a folding screen by David’s bed for when he needs it. The sleeping cots are right beside his bed, with Melanie and Oliver's beds and equipment at the other side of the lab. There’s a table for them to eat at together. The whole setup reminds Syd of Summerland. The shared sleeping space, the closeness of everything, the way there was no separation between the patients and the staff.

It reminds her of Melanie. The real Melanie, the way she was before Farouk got his hooks in her, too; not the pale, lost Melanie sleeping across the room. Syd doesn’t even know how it happened, how they let her slip away from them. One day, she was with them, missing Oliver deeply but still fighting for a better future for everyone. And then one day she was gone. She was still physically present, but her mind had drifted away, like Oliver’s mind drifted away from spending twenty years in an ice cube on the astral plane. 

Syd's never been a joiner. She was never part of anything until she was brought to Summerland. But she worked with Melanie every day over the year David was gone. They fought side-by-side against Division 3’s stubborn hatred for mutantkind every single day, and they did good work, real work together. Syd's proud of what they accomplished. They stopped so many terrible things, far beyond Farouk. They stopped innocent people’s lives from being ruined across the world. 

But maybe they pushed themselves too much. They were so busy looking after the world that they didn’t look after their own. And now they’re all paying the price. 

When they've finished arranging the room, Divad sits on David's bed, looks around. "Yes, this is much better," he says. 

"Is there any change?" Cary asks him.

Divad looks at something they can't see. Maybe it's David. It's strange to think of him like this, so close but just out of reach. He's been trapped outside of his body before, stuck in the astral plane or some other psychic space, but he's not trapped this time. He could come back to them, to himself; he just can't bear to. 

"No," Divad says, unhappily. "Dvd's with him. He'll let us know when David comes back."

"And then you'll switch?" Cary asks. 

"If that's what he wants," Divad says. He's worried, too; she can see it, even if his worried face is different from David's worried face. 

Cary sighs, runs his hand back through his hair. “Thank god you’re here.”

Divad raises his eyebrows.

“Not that we don’t want David back, very badly,” Cary explains. “But you and Dvd are so important. Thank you, for keeping him alive, for not letting him— Thank you.”

Divad actually seems quite touched by that. “I know our existence makes things harder for everyone,” he admits. “David’s afraid that—“ He pauses, upset. “It’s hard for him, accepting that we’re part of him.”

“It must have been terrible when he forgot you,” Cary says, with feeling. “I can’t imagine—“

“It was worse for David,” Divad says. “At least Dvd and I still had each other, even if all we did was fight. David knew something was missing, but he just thought—“ He swallows. “He blamed himself. He thinks he’s—“ He can’t finish. 

“Well,” Cary says, firmly. “Obviously he’s wrong about that.”

Ptonomy walks over, having finished going over the new plan with Clark. “I think we’re all set. Is there anything else you want to tell us?”

“There’s a lot,” Divad says. “But I don’t know what you’ll need to know until David comes back.”

“That’s what’s giving us a fighting chance,” Ptonomy assures him. “Most therapy is fumbling in the dark, hoping to find part of the story. With your help, we don’t have waste time with that. We can find what’s hurting him and treat it.”

Syd thinks of her mother. She thinks of chemotherapy and surgery, carpet bombing and targeted strikes. Maybe there is hope, if they can find the mass of his disease and cut it out quickly. 

“And you’re able to keep David’s emotions from going out of control,” Ptonomy continues. “That means we don’t need to rely on any drugs. No side effects, nothing to remind him of the ways he’s been treated before. He can face things with a clear head.”

“It’s still not going to be easy,” Divad warns them. “But we’ll do everything we can from our side, and we’ll trust you.”

“Thank you,” Ptonomy says. “We’ll do everything we can for him. If we can get David well enough, he'll start to help himself. That’s when we’ll know he’ll be okay.”

§

It was lunchtime when David left. They wait through the afternoon, through dinner, but he still doesn’t come back. Divad and Dvd switch places, Divad watching over David while Dvd takes care of their body.

Their body, not his. Syd’s going to have to get used to this, to David being other people, even if the other people are still him. Even though no one knew, Divad and Dvd have been there the whole time. They’ve experienced almost all of David’s life with him. They’ve—

They’ve experienced her. Her body, her love. The things she and David did thinking they were alone. The things she said to him, she also said to them.

It’s a lot to take in. It feels too much like last year, when she realized with sinking horror that the David who’d come back from the astral plane and made love to her wasn’t fully David at all. That there was someone inside him, guiding him, controlling him, looking out at her through his eyes. Wearing David like a mask.

These alters, they’re not Farouk. They weren’t trying to deceive her or David. They were trapped inside him the way David was trapped, shouting and pounding and trying so hard to be heard.

She knows that David didn’t like what Farouk made him do to Division 3 last year. Even in the brief time they’ve had, he’s woken up with terrible nightmares, reliving that day. She feels sick when she thinks about the things she said to him under Farouk’s control. It’s no wonder all David could think to do was make her forget. He wanted to forget, too. He didn’t want the pain of hearing her tell him he was the very monster he’d tried so hard to fight. She said she loved him, but she still said that to him. She wonders if that’s what finally broke him, that last, feather-light straw on top of decades of straws.

She thinks maybe it was. 

There's nothing she can do to take those words back, just like there's nothing David can do to take back what he did to her. They have to live with all of it, like they have to live with all the things they've done and all the things done to them. That's the only choice there's ever been for her, even if it hasn't been the only choice for David.

He has to come back. Please let him come back, so they can help him the way they should have from the start.

"He'll be okay."

It's David's voice, and it startles her. But it's still Dvd behind David's face, looking out at her.

"David's tough," Dvd says, with quiet pride. "I mean— He’s not like me. He doesn’t have to be because I’m the tough one, I’m strong enough for all of us. Anything the world wants to throw at us? I knock it down.” The arrogant gleam in his eyes fades. “David’s— He’s soft, but he takes it. Whatever it is, he takes it.”

“Maybe he took too much,” Syd says, quietly. 

“Yeah,” Dvd says, frowning and furrowing his brow. “But— A few hours? That’s nothing. We had to cover for him for over a week when we were fifteen. He still came back.”

A week? “What did Farouk do to him?” She asks, unable not to, but she really doesn’t want to know. 

Thankfully, Dvd doesn’t want to tell. “What he always does. Fucked him over, fucked all of us over, jerking himself off the whole time.” He puts up his middle fingers and points them at the ceiling. 

Syd saw David do that, over the live feed, just before he stepped out of himself and vanished. She’d wondered, but hearing only one-third of David’s conversations with his alters has been challenging at best. At least that’s one mystery solved. 

“What was it like?” Syd asks, curious. “For the three of you? Besides—“

“Besides the torture?” Dvd huffs. “Sometimes he left us alone for a while. It’s no fun breaking what’s already broken. Those times were— We had each other. We had Amy. She loved us for longer than anyone, until—“

Amy. God, with everything going on, Syd had completely forgotten about her drunken revelation. 

“But she gave up on us, too,” Dvd grouches. “I was so mad, David would’ve been on my side if he’d been able to hear us, but Divad—“

“Amy’s still alive,” she says, and everyone turns and looks at her. 

“What?” Dvd is the first to speak, but they all want to know. “Farouk killed her, he turned her into Lenny.”

Syd rubs her forehead. “I know, but— After David was— I had a hunch, a drunken hunch that Farouk had done something to keep her alive just so he could use her to torture David. So I went down and talked to Lenny and— Amy’s still alive. Or part of her, something. Her soul?” It must be her soul, Syd knows about souls. “She answered my questions about David.”

“You spoke with her?” Cary asks. 

“I talked to Lenny. Lenny told me what she said.” It’s weird, but is it any weirder than anything else they’ve dealt with? Is it weirder than a woman who can swap souls with a touch? A man inhabiting a hive-mind android? Two people who’ve alternately lived inside each other? Maybe David and his alters are the most normal out of all of them. 

Now that’s a thought.

“You didn’t think to mention this sooner?” Ptonomy says, angry in a way he hasn’t been since he came back. 

“I was drunk, and hungover, and then—“ Syd makes a wordless gesture to encompass every crazy thing that’s happened. This is the first time in days that her mind hasn’t been one long, high-pitched scream. 

“Amy,” Dvd says, stunned. “Hold on, I gotta—“ He closes his eyes, and then when he opens them: “Amy’s alive?” asks Divad. 

"Okay, okay, let's take a breath," Ptonomy says, tersely. "The last thing we want to do is walk right into another one of Farouk's traps. Until we know it's really her, we can't tell David. We don't even know that Lenny is Lenny."

"We need a telepath," Cary says, and looks over at Oliver, looks back at Divad. "That's the one thing we don't have."

"Maybe we could take off the crown?" Syd offers. "Dvd could do it. Just for a few minutes, while David's not awake."

"And if David comes back right in the middle of that?" Ptonomy says. "It would be a disaster."

"Well the only other telepath is Farouk, and that would be even more of a disaster," Syd says back. Shit, how are they going to talk to Amy? They need to get into Lenny's head somehow, figure out what's going on. See if-- "Oh my god," she says, realizing. "I can do it. I can swap with Lenny."

"But--"

She cuts Ptonomy off. "When I was leaving Clockworks, David kissed me. I was in his body. But so was Farouk. I saw him. He's what made me--" He's what made her seal up all the patients using David's powers, he's what made her kill Lenny. And then he snatched Lenny's soul and dragged her into David's mind, so he could use her to hurt David when David came back.

It's almost predictable how awful Farouk is, how single-mindedly he tortures David at every opportunity, in any way he possibly can. 

If Syd swaps bodies with Lenny, Amy will still be in Lenny's body. And then Syd can see her and talk to her directly. They'll know for sure if it's her, at least as sure as any of them can be about any of this.

"I'll get Clark," Ptonomy says, and a few minutes later, the man himself limps into the lab.

"Been a little distracted, have we?" Clark smirks.

"You knew," Syd realizes. He told her, that morning, right before David got his diagnosis. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"The same reason why you're not already down in Lenny's cell," Clark says. "I didn't want to make a bad situation worse. I still don't. We have no reason to believe she's anything but a roadside bomb, waiting to go off and take the last of David's sanity with her." He touches his forehead. "Like David's little messages. Farouk just has to sit back and watch the fireworks."

"That's all he's been doing," Syd says, though frankly she's glad of that. The last thing David needs is for Farouk to pay him another visit and make things worse.

Shit, they're going to need to watch out for that. If David does start getting better, and Farouk doesn't want him to... Shit. _Shit._

Okay. Okay, one potential disaster at a time. At least this one is something she can actually do something about. She's done with sitting on the sidelines, watching.

They say the best way to defuse a bomb is to blow it up. A controlled explosion, that’s what it’s called. Clear the blast zone, isolate the bomb, and trigger it on your terms, not the terms of whoever left it there. 

Lenny’s the package and Amy’s the bomb hidden inside. Syd doesn’t know how yet, but she knows Clark's right. Lenny's the innocuous package left on the street, waiting silently for some unsuspecting passerby to pick it up and blow themselves apart. 

Farouk is getting predictable. He always does the cruelest thing that anyone could possibly imagine. It makes her sick to put herself in his head, even in the abstract, but she has to. She has to, because if she can’t control this explosion, it’s going to blow what’s left of David apart. 

She doesn’t know how yet, but she knows it’s true.

"So let's set off some fireworks," Syd says.


	13. Day 3: She thinks about sunflowers.

Sunflowers. Amy keeps thinking about sunflowers.

She had a garden full of them, in the desert. It wasn't much, as gardens go, just a dusty patch of sand she had to water several times a day just to keep it alive under the relentless sun. Not a lot of things grow in a desert, even with all that water, fertilizer, attention. But her sunflowers thrived, growing so fast, so big and strong. From tiny little seeds they grew up and up, until they were taller than she was.

They're probably all dead, now, without her to water them. Without her to love them. A few days in the sun and they'll have withered away. A few weeks and they'll bake until they crumble into dust and blow away on the desert wind.

Ben. Oh god, Ben.

She knew, as soon as he walked to the door and there was silence. She knew. She thinks part of her was waiting for it to happen, waiting all year for the monster to find them. It was almost a relief when the dread finally stopped because the worst was already happening.

But then there was the pain. And the pain was worse than the dread, even a whole year of dreading and worrying, a whole year of praying for a miracle, for David to come back to them whole and healthy, for the wandering monster to stay away for good and leave them in peace. That's all she ever wanted, for her and Ben and David to be left in peace to live their lives. For things to be safe and normal and happy. That's all she ever wanted for all of them.

She didn't even know David was back. Division 3 didn't tell her. Syd didn't tell her, even though they'd grown close over the long year of waiting. The first time she knew that David was back, it was when he appeared in front of her in an upside-down interrogation room. She couldn't speak to him, couldn't tell him she was there. But then he saw her memories and he knew. He knew.

She thinks his pain was equal to her own, in that moment, hearing him wail with intolerable grief. She grieved for him back, and for herself, for Ben, for everything the monster had taken away from all of them. He took so, so much.

She wishes she'd been able to hold him, but it was Lenore that did that. Lenore Busker. Lenny, as she likes to be called, as David called her when he talked about her in Clockworks. Lenny was his friend, his only friend in that place for a long time. And then she died, and then her ghost possessed him, controlled him, walked him around like a doll and spoke with his mouth.

David explained all of it later, when they were finally safe in Summerland. He explained how there had been a monster in his head, making him see things and hear things. How the monster hurt him and then made him forget what it had done, so he wouldn't be able to stop it from hurting him again. He explained that Lenny was just a trick it used to manipulate him.

Amy didn't understand any of that. It was all madness to her. She only cared that it was all over and that David was finally well. Her little brother, her sick little brother who'd suffered so much, was finally going to be okay.

And then, just like that, someone took him.

God, it was so unfair. He was happy for the first time in so long. He had somewhere he could actually belong. He was loved and safe and had everything she'd always wished for him. And someone reached out and ripped him away from all of that.

She doesn't know who they were. She had a year of questions and no answers and then a horrific, final answer to a question she never wanted to ask. But they were cruel, doing that to him. They were unspeakably cruel.

The monster possessed someone else when they got it out. It couldn't have David so it took Oliver Bird instead. Oliver was a kind man, odd but kind, and she was so grateful to him for saving them, for helping them save David. She didn't understand any of what he did, but she knows he did more for David in those few days than all the doctors ever could.

She knows it wasn't Oliver who did this to her, who killed Ben. She doesn't blame him for being walked around like a doll, for being spoken out of. She's grieving for him too, even though she doesn't know if he's alive or dead. He probably doesn't want to be alive, after doing the things the monster made him do.

She thinks about her sunflowers. She thinks about cutting them down, a row every week, so she could sit with them in the kitchen. She thinks about their dark, wide faces and bright petals, the yellow rays taking the sunlight and making it smooth and soft and solid. She planted them in sequence, another row every week so every week would have a harvest. Fifty-two rows of sunflowers. With all that sun, it took about fifteen weeks for each seed to grow big enough to bloom. So many of those rows will never bloom. The ones she planted last are already dead, tiny seedlings too weak to survive even a single day without her.

Ben. Oh god, Ben.

He hated the desert. As little as Amy understood about their situation, about why their lives were in danger, he understood it even less. Ben was a man of simple needs and that was part of what she loved about him. She'd dealt with enough complexity in her life, enough suffering and confusion. She needed someone like him, who understood so little of her life that he let her leave it behind. To Ben, David was just her crazy little brother who belonged safely locked away in a mental hospital, and that was that. He didn't mean to be dismissive, to be cruel, to ignore how important David was to her heart. He just didn't understand, and it was easier to ignore what he didn't understand.

That was why she married him. So she could ignore what she didn't understand and not feel guilty for it. Even before David tried to kill himself, Ben urged her to find somewhere to put David away. Ben was the one who researched the options, who left pamphlets on the dinner table. Ben proposed to her the week after David walked into Clockworks, and Amy said yes, and cried with joy and cried with grief and cried with shame because she knew he wouldn't have asked if asking meant bearing the burden of David with her.

David couldn't come to the wedding. They wouldn't let him out for that. They wouldn't let him out for their father's funeral. They wouldn't let him out at all.

She knew it was a mistake, putting him there, but she didn't know what else to do. She didn't know how else to help him. And the doctors there had been so kind when she met with them, telling her that David would get his own room, that he would get the best treatment, that they would do everything they could to make him better, and if they couldn't make him better they would at least keep him safe.

All they did was keep him. She visited him whenever she could, at least once a month, but he never got better. He was physically safe but that was all. It broke her heart to visit him, and it broke her heart to sit at home knowing there was nothing she could do for him.

At least he couldn't try to kill himself while he was there. That's what she told herself. At least he's still alive. If she hadn't put him there, he would have tried again. That's what the doctors said, in the hospital, as he lay in the emergency room bed with an angry bruise across his throat. They said he would almost definitely try again, if nothing changed, and that he needed professional help before it was too late.

She made the right choice, getting him help, even if it wasn't the right kind of help. She believes that. She didn't know about the monster, no one did. Even if she had, what could she have done differently? There was a bad thing in David's head, driving him crazy, and it didn't matter if that bad thing was a literal monster or just a figurative one. Either way, she couldn't have got it out on her own. 

She couldn't have. She spent so many years trying to help him get better, and she never could.

She thinks about sunflowers.

She thinks about sunflowers.

She saw the message when David put it into Lenny's mind. She didn't understand that either, but it was important to David and she wanted to do everything she could to help him, now that she could help him. So she did. She got Lenny to the blue octopus, to the car with the gun, to the desert. Despite what the monster did, twisting them together like this, she knows Lenny is David's friend, his only friend for the years he was at his lowest. Amy knew Lenny would step up and help, if she just had a little push.

Amy's glad she pushed. Lenny saved David's life twice with that gun, in the desert. Lenny might be crude and an addict and mostly an awful person overall, but she's been there for David when he needed her, when she could. She loves him the way only two people who've been through something terrible together can love each other. If Amy has to spend the rest of her life a prisoner in her own body, unable to do anything but watch, at least she's trapped in someone who loves David the way they both love him.

She just hopes he's all right. She thought he was, until Syd came to visit, incredibly drunk and offering liquor. She thought David's plan had worked and the monster had finally been caught. But Syd said David was in danger, that Farouk was going to kill him, and she hasn't been back and no one else has come for days.

So there's nothing Amy can do but wait, again. To wait in a prison cell inside of a prison cell. She doesn't do well in prisons. That's not a truth about herself that she ever wanted to know. She's not a tough person, if she gets a papercut she has to lie down. But here she is, trapped in an incredibly unpleasant cell at the heart of Division 3, again. She can't even scream this time. So she thinks about sunflowers.

She thinks about sunflowers.

She thinks about--

The door to the cell opens. There's guards, and they take rough hold of Lenny and drag her out of the cell. Lenny struggles against them even though she's just as glad as Amy to see the back of that awful room, even if whatever's going to happen to them is even worse.

They're brought to a strange room. There's a man sitting in a chair at the center of it, and he has a basket on his head. There are two strange women standing on either side of him, on pedestals, with large magnifying lenses in front of their faces. There's a giant picture of a forest behind them, and it's glowing with light.

If Amy wasn't already slowly losing her mind, she'd think she was finally going crazy.

Syd walks in, sober this time. Clark and one of those strange women are with her. Amy saw the women through Lenny's eyes before, and thought they looked familiar somehow, but she doesn't know why. They have thick mustaches. She certainly would have remembered seeing women with mustaches before.

"Lenore Busker," says one of the women, in an odd, robotic, melodic voice that's just so familiar Amy wishes she could place it. "There is an eighty-nine percent chance that the soul of Amy Haller is contained within the body formerly known as Amy Haller."

"Shit, you didn't have to drag me up here to tell me that," Lenny says, cocky but as bewildered as Amy feels. "You coulda just asked." She turns to Syd. "Party's been pretty dry in that cell, you got any more whiskey? Vodka? Hard drugs? These chicks look like they do hard drugs."

"You will tell us the purpose of your presence here," says the woman on the other side of the basket guy.

"Yeah," Lenny says, already looking around for a way out. "I already told you guys, I was in a drawer. I'd love to help, really. Where's David? I heard, ah, I heard he was in trouble."

"David Haller is currently receiving treatment," says the first woman.

Lenny doesn't like the sound of that. "Treatment? What the hell? What are you sickos doing to him?"

Amy wants to know the answer to that herself. What's happened to David? She needs to know what's happened to David. Oh god, something's happened to him and she can't help him, not when she's a prisoner inside of a prisoner. God, she wishes she could scream. She can't even scream.

_Lenore, do something, _Amy urges, because that's all she can do. _Help him!___

__"He is receiving treatment," says the second woman._ _

__"He just saved your asses from that asshole!" Lenny says, wriggling in the guards' grip. "Lemme see David!"_ _

__"Lenny," Syd says, walking up and stopping in front of her. "I need to talk to Amy again."_ _

__"Fuck you, talk to her yourself," Lenny snarls._ _

__Syd smiles, lips pressed together. "I will," she says, and reaches up and touches Lenny's cheek with her bare hand._ _

__And then everything--_ _

__And then Lenny--_ _

__There's this moment, this perfect suspension in time, when Amy is alone in her own body again. She's still trapped, tucked away in a corner of her own mind, but Lenny is gone, completely gone._ _

__And then someone else rushes in, filling up all the space._ _

__In front of her, Syd collapses, and the third mustache woman catches her before she hits the floor._ _

__"Hey," says Lenny's voice, but it's not Lenny's mind around her now. It's Syd's._ _

__It takes Amy a minute to remember that this is a thing Syd can do. This is a mutant thing she can do, swapping souls with someone else. It's how they got the monster out of David._ _

__"Amy, can you hear me? It's Syd. If you're there, say something."_ _

__It's not easy for Amy to manifest herself visually. It takes a lot of effort, and she's only managed it twice, but both times were when David needed her and David needs her now._ _

__"I'm here," Amy says, showing herself._ _

__Syd sees her. "Is it really you?"_ _

__"Yeah," Amy says, and relief suddenly floods through her. When Syd didn't come back before, she thought-- She didn't know what had happened, but it scared her. She thought maybe Syd was too drunk to remember that she was still inside of Lenny. She thought no one but Lenny would ever see her again. "Syd. Thank god. Please, what's going on?"_ _

__"David's safe," Syd promises. "You'll find out everything soon. But right now we have to take care of you, okay?"_ _

__Syd nods, and one of the other women comes over and helps the third woman drag Syd's body towards the back of the room. Lenny's waking up, but she's still limp, groggy._ _

__"What's happening?" Amy asks, worried. She never worried about anyone losing their body until recently but she's very worried about that now._ _

__"We'll both find out soon," Syd tells her. "It'll be okay, I promise."_ _

__And then, to Amy's shock, the two women drag Syd's body into the picture of the forest. They vanish inside it._ _

__"I'm sorry," Syd says to her, genuinely. "We tried to keep you safe, but we failed."_ _

__And then everything--_ _

__And then Syd--_ _

__And then it's everything around Amy that changes. She feels lots of things at once: Lenny rushing back, a blur of trees, a pain at her temples. And then she's pulled, pulled, and Lenny's pulled, too, into--_ _

__Amy opens her eyes. She's in a dark space, and there are numbers glowing on the walls._ _

__"What the fucking fuck?" Lenny says. She's in the room, too._ _

__"It takes some getting used to," says a voice, familiar and male. Amy turns. It's Ptonomy, wearing a black suit._ _

__Amy rushes up to him and hugs him. "Where are we?" she asks, bewildered. "What happened?"_ _

__"We killed you," Ptonomy says, apologetically. "I'm sorry. It was the only way to save both of you."_ _

__"You killed me?" Lenny says, outraged. "I just got my body back, asshole!"_ _

__"That wasn't your body," Ptonomy says, sternly._ _

__Amy steps back. It was bad enough that her body had been mutilated, overwritten with Lenny's genetic material. But they _killed_ her? "I'm-- I'm dead?"_ _

__"We're alive," Ptonomy assures her. "We're in Division 3's mainframe. Farouk can't reach us here. I'm sorry, we didn't want to have to do this, but it was the only way to save both of you. We had to act quickly."_ _

__This is all too much for Amy to cope with. She's inside of a computer now? Maybe she has gone crazy, completely crazy. Maybe she should be the one checked into Clockworks._ _

__"Amy," Ptonomy says, putting a hand on her arm. "I know it's a shock. But Farouk was going to use you to hurt David."_ _

__That brings her back. Protecting David always brings her back. Maybe it's wrong, that he's her constant. Maybe she should have stopped trying to help him and lived her own life. But he's her little brother. He's her heart._ _

__"We figured out his plan," Ptonomy continues. "Once David realized you were trapped inside of Lenny, he would have faced an impossible choice. Either he would have had to kill Lenny to save you, or he would have been forced to let you suffer, trapped inside your own body, the same way David was trapped inside of his."_ _

__"So you killed my body?" Lenny says, still outraged._ _

__"We cut the Gordian knot,” Ptonomy says. "David's in an extremely fragile state right now, and even if he wasn't, there's no reason to make him go through that. Farouk's tortured him for long enough. We're not letting him hurt David or either of you anymore."_ _

__"By killing us!" Lenny says, spreading her arms wide. "I told you Division 3 was evil. That's some supervillain shit."_ _

__"Farouk already killed you," Ptonomy shoots back at her. "And what he did to Amy-- We had no way to restore her, and even if we did, restoring her would have killed you again. At least this way you're both still alive."_ _

__"You said--" Amy's trying to focus, trying to cling to something she can understand. "You said David's sick?"_ _

__"Yes," Ptonomy says, sobering. "He's very sick. We're taking care of him as best we can, but he's going to need you -- both of you -- to get better."_ _

__Amy looks around. She's dead, her body is dead. No, she's alive and inside a computer. Maybe she's dead and inside a computer and crazy all at the same time. "How-- How can we help him from here?"_ _

__"The Vermillion," Ptonomy says. "The android women with mustaches? We can put our consciousnesses inside of them. That allows us to be part of the world. It takes some getting used to, but it works. I'll help you, don't worry. I've been in here for about a week now. It's not so bad once you get used to it."_ _

__"Shit," Lenny says, finally calming down. "You're dead, too?"_ _

__"Ptonomy," Amy gasps. She hugs him again. "I'm so sorry."_ _

__Ptonomy resists, then holds her back. He sighs against her hair. God, he's been dead for a week, dealing with all this, and he was alone in here._ _

__"At least we have each other," Amy says, tearful. They can still cry, here, it seems. Even without their bodies._ _

__"We do," Ptonomy agrees, and she can see that he's glad for that. "Come on. I'll show you around. This place is pretty wild."__

__§_ _

__"You killed them," Syd says, and feels another headache coming on._ _  


__"Technically, Ptonomy killed them," Clark says. "I wasn't allowed to know that part of the plan either. But yes. We killed their fused, mutilated body so we could upload their minds into the mainframe, where they'll be safe."_ _

__When they started working out a plan to save Amy, they ran into the same problem that David, Divad, and Dvd had. If the people making the plan had minds that could be read by Farouk, who was always listening, then Farouk would know the plan before they'd even finished making it._ _

__The only person among them whose mind couldn't be read was Ptonomy. So he had to make the plan and only share the parts he absolutely had to share for it to work. Syd's part of the plan was to swap bodies with Lenny, confirm that it really was Amy inside of her, and then wait a certain number of seconds to swap back. When she saw her body dragged into the mainframe, she'd had a moment of horrified doubt, but she'd waited those last seconds and made the switch, trusting that everything would go as planned._ _

__It did. She's just not thrilled with the final result._ _

__"How are we going to tell David?" Syd asks, frankly at a loss._ _

__"As far as David knows, Amy is completely gone," Clark offers. "Now she's alive, if disembodied. It's still an improvement."_ _

__"And Lenny?" Syd asks, not impressed._ _

__"It's not great," Clark admits. "But this was the best option out of a lot of bad options. They're alive, they're safe. We can look for a way to get them out of there. Make them new bodies, somehow. This is an age of wonders."_ _

__"Optimism isn't a good look on you," Syd tells him, but she has to admit he's right. Obviously they can't bring any of them out of the mainframe until Farouk is gone or all of this will be for nothing. But at least for now they're safe. Farouk can't touch them._ _

__She's still not looking forward to having to tell David any of this. Jesus. They killed Amy's body._ _

__"Okay," Syd says, gathering herself. "Okay. It's a win. I'll take it."_ _

__Clark looks pleased with himself. "Good. I'll let you deliver the news to the others."_ _

__Syd glares at him. "Thanks," she grits out. God, she's not looking forward to that either._ _

__Clark waves as he walks away._ _

__Syd takes a moment to collect herself. Jesus. They killed Amy's body. They're going to have to wait until David is a hell of a lot more stable to tell him any of this, or it's going to be just as bad as letting the Lenny-Amy package bomb blow up in his face._ _

__But Clark's right. He's right, David thought Amy was dead. Now Amy is alive. It's still an improvement. And she's in the mainframe with Ptonomy, so it's more like Amy and Lenny are just... somewhere else. With Ptonomy. That's not so bad._ _

__They're alive, they're safe. It's an age of wonders. The three of them were uploaded into the mainframe, there's no reason why they can't be download back out of it._ _

__"An age of wonders," Farouk agrees, and Syd jumps like a startled cat._ _

__"Very smart," he says, standing there, calm and composed. She doesn't know where he teleported in from, but he almost gave her a heart attack doing it. "Divide and conquer. I must congratulate you. I never expected you to go along with something so ruthless."_ _

__"I guess you don't know me very well," Syd says, trying again to collect herself as quickly as possible._ _

__"Always full of surprises," Farouk says._ _

__"Stay away from David," Syd warns, happy to turn the subject away from herself._ _

__Farouk chuckles. "My dear, there is no reason for such hostility. We want the same thing, for David to get better. What is it he said, David? It's no fun breaking what is already broken."_ _

__God, she hates how he's always watching them. "That was Dvd, not David."_ _

__"Ah, then you have decided to feed his delusion, his madness," Farouk says, with mock pity. "Do you not want to cure his sickness?"_ _

__"Dvd and Divad are how he survived being infected by you," Syd shoots back._ _

__Farouk raises a finger. "Ah, but you yourself know he did not survive. They told you, the ones you saved. His sister, his best friend. His mind shattered into fragments. He hung himself. He yearned for death as he yearns for it now. He strains for it with all his heart, but I deny him. David is only alive because that is what I want. I am his god."_ _

__Syd takes a step back, unable not to. She can't stand to be near his monstrosity._ _

__"It's true, he's too broken to play with," Farouk continues. "Do you think this is the first time that has happened? So I rest. I let him struggle to put himself back together. And if he can't?" He waves his hand. "A simple matter to make him forget. These fragments of him that fool themselves, thinking they are someone else. Even they forget, when I wish them to, and they do not even remember forgetting."_ _

__He steps forward, and she takes another step back._ _

__"You destroyed a beautiful sunrise," Farouk says, all menace now. "A marble sculpture revealed by my chisel. But David is clay. He is pliant, always ready to be shaped again to my will." He tilts his head. "So please, heal his tortured soul. Put him back together. Make him whole for me. Take your time, I insist. I am a very patient man."_ _

__And then he's gone._ _

__Syd falls back against the wall. She slides down to the floor and sobs, her hand over her mouth._ _


	14. Day 4: You and your friends got him out.

It’s not the kind of thing Syd does, having a breakdown in a hallway. If she’s going to have a breakdown, she’ll have it alone, in the privacy of her room, with a full bottle of whiskey for company. 

But she can’t move. She can barely breathe around the pain in her chest. She feels like she’s been punched in the gut, a strong right hook to the soft of her belly. 

She can’t move, and Division 3 is always watching. So it doesn’t surprise her when she hears footsteps coming towards her. It surprises her who they belong to. 

“I saw,” Clark says, and holds out his hand for her. “I’m sorry.”

Syd lets out a harsh breath. “Yeah.” She has to pull herself together. But it’s hard when she’s just been torn apart. 

Clark’s still holding out his hand. She forces herself to take it, to let him pull her up. Ants crawl under the skin of her palm. When she’s standing again she lets go and leans against the wall. 

“He’s an asshole,” Clark says, so casually that it makes Syd laugh through a sob. 

“God, he really is,” she agrees. 

Clark considers her, then joins her, leaning back against the wall. “You know, here’s the thing about people like him.”

“Are there others?” Syd interrupts, horrified at the very thought. 

“Too many. But most of them aren’t mind readers. The thing about people like him is that they can’t stand it when they lose.”

Syd sniffs. “So?”

“So when people like him get angry, that’s when they make mistakes.”

Syd wishes he would get to the point. “Which are?”

“What he said, all of that. I’m sure it was true. But it was only mostly true.”

“And which part wasn’t?” She asks, and wipes her eyes. “He did all of that to David. He’ll do it again.”

“He did. He could, when he lived in David’s head. But he’s not in David’s head anymore, because you and your friends got him out.”

Syd can’t believe what’s happening. “Are you pep talking me?”

Clark shrugs. “Don’t get used to it.”

Syd gives something like a laugh. It’s not quite a laugh but it’s better than crying. She takes a deep breath, lets it out. 

“You’re right,” she says, letting the realization calm her. “He’s pissed off because we beat him. He wanted to hurt me.” 

It worked. But it was a mistake, lashing out. This is the second time he’s gone out of his way to hurt her, to drive a wedge between her and David’s recovery. He was angry after David was captured, too, despite everything he did to make that happen. She can see that now. He was angry because he lost. 

Farouk likes to think of himself as a god. He’s incredibly powerful, but he’s back in his body now, and the real world isn’t as easy to control as David’s mind. He can talk, he can watch, he can push their buttons all day long. But they’re not his puppets. He can’t control them. Not the way he could control David from the inside, for thirty years.

You can forget a lot about the way the world works when you leave it behind for thirty years. Even one year in Clockworks was enough to teach her that. 

“Just because I made a deal with him, it doesn’t mean I want to see him win,” Clark says. 

“You know he just heard you say that.”

Clark shrugs. “I work with David. I’m used to mouthing off to unstable gods.”

It takes a moment for Syd to catch it: that he used the present tense and not the past. That he still considers David as an ally and not just a sick and dangerous patient. 

It means a lot, even though she knows he doesn’t want her to mention it. 

“Me too,” Syd says, and that’s enough.

§

It’s almost morning when David finally comes back to them.

Divad is awake, having rested earlier; Dvd is sleeping in David’s body. Everyone else is asleep except for Ptonomy. His Vermillion is quiet, and his mind is probably in the mainframe, keeping company with Amy and Lenny. 

It’s always a delicate time when David comes back. Divad doesn’t want to startle him. He lets David surface at his own pace, waits patiently as David uncurls from his tight ball, as he lifts his head and rubs at his eyes, sluggish and confused. 

David looks around, bewildered. A lot has changed since he went away. Divad can hear his thoughts: wondering if he’s still asleep, wondering if he’s dreaming. It doesn’t feel real for him to be here.

“Hey,” Divad says, softly. No one but David can hear him, but in a peaceful moment like this, it feels right to whisper. 

“Cary’s lab?” David asks, also whispering. “What are we doing here?” 

“We’re done with the cell,” Divad tells him. “We’re staying here now, with everyone.”

David looks around, sees his body sleeping on a bed. His body is peaceful, unrestrained but for the crown. The bruise on his jaw is spectacular but it’ll fade. David looks at the cots, at his friends sleeping beside him. 

“I don’t understand,” David says, and the heartbreaking thing is that he doesn’t. He can’t. Not yet. 

He looks at Syd. She chose the cot closest to his bed. She’s still wearing the compass necklace David gave her. 

David rests his head in his hands. “I don’t understand,” he says again, struggling. 

“You don’t have to,” Divad soothes. “We’re here. Can you let that be enough?”

David looks around again, and it’s hard for him. It’s so hard. But he nods, accepting.

“Do you want to step back in?” Divad asks. 

David shakes his head. “Not yet. Is that—“ He looks to Divad, uncertain. 

“It’s okay,” Divad says, gently. “We’ve always liked sharing.”

David smiles a little at that. He leans back against the wall, his body opening up more. “I went away again?” he asks. 

“For a while. Not too long.”

David takes a deep breath, lets it out. “What time is it?”

“Almost dawn,” Divad says, and gestures to the window. “Why don’t you go see?”

David freezes, going so still. It breaks Divad’s heart, the way David is afraid to let himself hope. Divad blames himself for that. Dvd was right, of course. Divad was afraid to let them hope, because it hurt too much to have those hopes shattered again and again. But he went too far the other way and dragged David down with him. Too much despair is even worse than heartbreak. 

David makes a faltering move, then another. He gets to his feet, walks towards the hexagon of pale light at the far wall. 

The dawn breaks, orange-pink from the dirt of the city air. It’s imperfect and messy and beautiful. David watches it and Divad can feel the way it wakes the pain in his heart. But it’s a needed pain, a good pain. It’s a start, however small. 

Divad reaches into their body and nudges Dvd awake. Their eyes flutter open and Divad presses a finger to his lips, cautioning Dvd from making any noise. The two of them watch David as the sun rises and daylight streams in, warm and bright around him.

§

David's back, but he's not _back_ back. He's been awake all morning but he won't get back in his body. Apparently he's decided that Divad and Dvd should just keep sharing his body, since they're enjoying it so much, and he should stay some kind of fake ghost forever.

Kerry's not having that. She didn't punch Dvd in the face, which meant punching David in the face, and then cry about it, just so David could hide in some invisible sulk. 

"I don't want to push him," admits Divad, quietly, as if David isn't right in the room with them and can’t hear everything they're saying. 

"Where is he now?" Kerry demands, looking around the lab. "I'll push him."

Cary looks up from where he's checking on Oliver and sighs.

"Still by the window," Divad says. "Let's just-- Give him some more time."

"No," Kerry says. She turns to the window, hoping she's looking at the right spot. "It's lunchtime, and I'm not eating lunch if you won't eat lunch. We did all this work to make you feel better. You need to get back in your body so you can appreciate it."

Divad listens. "He says he's already very grateful," he relays. "And that we've already done more than he deserves."

Kerry rolls her eyes. "You have to make him come back," she tells Divad.

"I'll try again," Syd says, putting aside the psychology book she's been reading. She goes over to the window, then looks to Divad. Divad waves her to stand back a foot, so she does. "David, you have to come back. We can't help you if you won't talk to us."

Divad shakes his head. David hasn't been willing to talk to Syd all morning. According to Divad, he hasn't wanted to talk much at all to anyone. He's just sat by the window and felt bad about everything. 

Kerry supposes it makes sense. Before David disappeared, all he was doing was sitting around and feeling bad about everything. But it was a lot easier for her to deal with that when she could look him in the eye and yell at him. Now she can only yell in his general direction and it doesn't have the same effect.

"Let's have lunch anyway," Cary says, ever the peacemaker. "Maybe seeing us eat will make him hungry."

"He didn't want waffles," Kerry reminds him. "David always wants waffles."

"Yes, that was disconcerting," Cary admits. He looks to Divad. "Are you sure you can't--" He makes a pushing gesture. "Encourage him?"

"I don't think forcing David to do anything is a good idea," Divad says. Then he pauses, listening. "Dvd says to just leave David alone. He says--" He rolls his eyes, but continues. "He says David's probably mad about you punching him."

Kerry hesitates. "Is he?"

"No, but Dvd is," Divad says.

Syd rubs her forehead. "David, please. We just want you to get better."

Divad sighs. 

"What?" Syd asks.

"Getting better is--" Divad winces. "He says he's never going to get better, and he's tired of trying."

Cary rubs the back of his neck. "When you said it was going to be difficult to help David, I didn't think it was going to be this difficult."

Divad gives a long-suffering sigh. "Okay, switch." Divad closes his eyes, and Dvd opens them.

"Leave him alone," Dvd growls at Syd. "He doesn't want to talk to you. He doesn't want to talk to anyone."

"What does he want?" Kerry challenges. 

Dvd looks pained. "You know what he wants."

Kerry crosses her arms. David still wants to die. She thought she got him to apologize for that but she realizes now that she should have been more specific. "Well, he can't," she says, angrily. "Tell him he can't."

Dvd narrows his eyes at her. "No."

"You're supposed to be helping us."

"No, I'm supposed to be helping David. All you're doing is annoying him."

"Maybe he needs to be annoyed."

"Maybe you need to fuck off!"

Kerry glares at Dvd, and then delivers him a sharp kick in the shin.

Dvd leaps back, grabbing his shin. "What the hell!"

"David, if you don't get back in your body right now, I'm gonna keep kicking Dvd."

Dvd looks at the window and has some kind of silent exchange with David. Kerry steps forward and kicks him on the other shin. 

"Brat!" Dvd shouts, wincing.

"Oh, you want more of that?" Kerry challenges. She puts on a thoughtful pose. "Hm, left or right this time?"

"Wait, wait!" Dvd holds up his hand, closes his eyes. They stay closed for almost a whole minute. And then just when Kerry is about to deliver another kick, they open again.

It's David. Finally.

"Ow," David says, bending down to rub both shins. "That really hurts!"

By the window, Syd gives a strained laugh. "I should have thought of that."

David straightens and winces, rubs at his bruised jaw. "Happy now?" he grumbles. He starts for the window, but sees Syd and turns around and walks over to his bed. He lies down, adjusts his pillow, and curls up around himself.

Oh.

Kerry feels bad now. But she's not giving up that easy. "You still have to eat lunch," she tells him.

David doesn't respond. This isn’t much of an improvement, if she's honest. Now she can see him sulking, but he's still sulking.

Now that he's back in his body, everyone decides to give him some space. After they've all eaten, Kerry brings him a plate of dumplings. She made sure they got soft food for him because his jaw's gonna hurt for a while.

“You have to eat to stay alive,” she reminds him. “If you starve yourself that’s suicide. You’re not allowed to do that, remember?”

Kerry doesn’t care that Farouk threatened to torture them all forever if David kills himself. But David does. It’s the one thing that gets through to him, besides kicking Dvd in the shins. 

David sits up and half-heartedly eats the dumplings. Then he lies back down and curls up again. 

Kerry thinks about all of this. Maybe David doesn’t care about himself anymore. But he must still care about them or he’d still be invisible.

She sits down in one of the chairs next to his bed, looks at him, and does what Cary does all the time. She thinks, and keeps thinking until she reaches a conclusion.

"I'm sorry I punched Dvd's face," she says to him. "Cause it's your face, too. It must really hurt. He deserved it but you don't. So I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for kicking you."

David makes a small noise. It's not much, but it's a start. She plows on. 

"You must have been pretty scared to go away like that. I was worried you weren't going to come back. Divad and Dvd said you would, but-- If you didn't, it would've been my fault."

David looks up at her. "No," he says, softly, and looks down again. "It's--" 

When he doesn't continue, she does. "And then you woke up somewhere else. That's scary, too. It makes you feel like-- Like you're not even there. You're just a passenger. It makes you not want to come out at all, because you're not-- It's not your life." She takes a shaky breath. "And then it's easier to let it not be your life at all."

Across the lab, Cary is watching her. They've never talked about any of this. She didn't want to. But she has to now, because she's the only one who understands what David's going through. She's the only one.

David's looking at her again, and he's not looking away. She keeps going, knowing they're close to what they need.

"Being alive hurts," she says, honestly. "It's scary, being-- Outside, all the time. With people. Staying alive, eating, it's all-- It's a lot of work. Sometimes all I want to do is go back into Cary and never come out again. But I don't because-- Because I spent so long hiding inside him that I missed a lot of good things, too."

Cary's so old, now. He's so old and she's not. She promised to punch death in the face for him, but deep in her heart she knows death isn't something she can punch. Punching Dvd only meant she punched David, too. 

"I think," she says, gathering her courage. "I think everything hurts. Your jaw. Your shins. The crown. I think everything hurts and you just want it to stop hurting."

David's eyes are wet now, and he's looking at her like he's starving for every word. 

"That's what we want," she says. "We want to help you stop hurting. But you have to stop hurting yourself. If you do that, you won't need the crown, okay? You won't need a kick in the shins and you won't need me to punch you in the face again."

David lets out another noise, something between a sob and a laugh. A few tears track down his face. "It hurts," he says, admits, quietly pleads for her to understand.

"Yeah," she agrees. "It's gonna hurt. It hurt when I got shot. There was a bullet sitting in my chest, and even after Cary dug it out, I didn't even want to breathe because every time I breathed it hurt so much. And I couldn't go away, I couldn't hide because if I did it would have hurt Cary, too. So you're gonna hurt and we're gonna hurt and everything's gonna suck for a while. But we'll get through it together and it's gonna get better again. That's the truth."

There's a little spark of hope in his eyes, but there's fear, so much fear trying to drown it out. "I can't," he says.

God, this is hard. She can do this. She has to do this. 

"You can," she tells him. "You have to. Because we need you. We-- We love you, and if you give up, that's gonna hurt us worse than anything Farouk could ever do to us. So if you need something to fight for, fight for us. Stay alive because we want you to stay alive, not because he does."

David closes his eyes and turns away, rolls onto his back. He takes gasping breaths as more tears spill down his face. He must be in so much awful, awful pain, worse than ten bullet wounds. Worse than a hundred. Maybe it's not that he wants to die. Maybe he just feels like he's already dying, and every breath hurts worse than the one before it. Maybe what they have to do is help him breathe so they can get the bullets out and sew him up.

"She's right." 

Kerry turns to see Syd standing at the end of the bed. When David sees her, his face crumples.

Syd comes over and sits next to Kerry. "David," she says, gently. "I know what he's done to you. I know you're-- You're so afraid it's all going to be the same. That you're trapped, that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you fight, it won’t make a difference. He has you in his grip so tight you're never going to get away. That was the truth for a long, long time. But it's not true anymore because we got him out of you. Whatever else happened since that day, we got him out of your body, and that's-- It wasn't enough, god it wasn't, but it's everything. It means this isn't going to be like before. It means you have a chance. That's something you never had before."

David shakes his head.

"You never had a chance," Syd says, kindly. "He only let you think you did so it would hurt more every time you failed. I know that you're afraid. You've had to put yourself back together so many times, just so he could break you. But even that was never your choice. Everything he did to you, if you couldn't come back from it, he would just make you forget. And he made you forget so much." 

Syd pauses, visibly shaken by the horror of that.

"We love you," she says, imploring him. "That means we wouldn't put you through that again for nothing. We wouldn't make you suffer if there wasn't any hope. For the first time, you can truly make the choice to get better. We'll be here with you, fighting every step of the way, but you have to take that first step. You, David. You're the only one who can do that. And you can do it, because you are here and alive and you have that choice."

The whole time Syd talked, David kept crying, but he was listening, too. Kerry could see him trying so hard to hear them, to believe them. With a great rush of relief, she realizes that he truly doesn't want to die. He doesn't. He's just so afraid.

Kerry stands up and hugs him. David startles, not expecting that at all, but she doesn't care. She just hugs him tighter. She knows Syd can't hug him so she has to hug him for both of them, for everyone. 

She keeps hugging him until he hugs her back. She keeps hugging him, and he breathes out, breathes in. He keeps breathing.


	15. Day 4: He’s just a passenger along for the ride.

The first step. That’s what he has to take. And he can take it because he’s here, here’s alive. Because David is still David. There are things he's lost that he'll never get back. But he's here and he's not alone. 

David’s not sure yet if he can believe the other thing his friends have told him, if he can accept them into his ever-growing mantra. He’s not sure he can believe that this time is different. Even if Farouk is out of his body, he’s still as determined as ever to control every aspect of David’s life. He’s still able to influence him, to manipulate him, to take away every other option until David has no choice but to choose exactly what Farouk wants him to choose. 

David doesn’t want to try to get better if that only means giving Farouk what he wants. He doesn’t want to be whole if that means being broken all over again, if that means he won’t be able to stop himself from becoming whatever monster Farouk wants to turn him into. He doesn’t want to be someone who hurts other people, whether it’s his own choice or not. 

He doesn’t want to. But when has it ever mattered what he wants? He’s not allowed to die, and he can’t suffer without making everyone who cares about him suffer, too. Just like before, he’s had every other option taken away from him. So he has to take the first step. He has to get better, even if getting better terrifies him in so many different ways. 

After Syd and Kerry finished taking away his choice to stay broken, he asked for his notebook back. Of course they gave it to him, thinking it was a good sign, a positive sign that he’s ready to get better. They even left him alone to write down his thoughts in peace. 

But he still only has one thought, so that’s all he’s writing. David, David, David, David, David. No variation this time. He just writes his name as neatly as he can, his hand steady because Divad keeps it from shaking. This is the only thing he can truly choose to do, the only thing he can control. It helps him remember that he exists when everything is trying to erase him. 

He’ll have to ask for another notebook soon. He’s filled up half of this one already, and he’s only been physically able to write for half of the past two days. Part of that lost time he spent in a terrifying absence, and the other part he spent where he wants to be right now: away from his body, away from the pain it holds, away from the heaviness of living in the world. 

Kerry was right. It’s hard being alive. It’s so, so hard. He doesn’t want to go away again, but god, he doesn’t want to be alive either. Not if it’s just going to be this forever: pain and fear and agonizing dread, the future always barreling towards him like a freight train and he’s tied to the tracks. 

He would kill himself. Even if that’s a kind of going away, he would do it. Because his existence isn’t worth the price everyone else has paid and is paying and will continue to pay. He isn’t worth the world. He’s not even worth a third of a person. 

But he can’t. So he keeps writing. 

Ptonomy comes back to the lab. He’s been busy with something, no one’s told David what. It doesn’t matter if he knows or not. He doesn’t get choices, so it can’t matter if he knows anything. He’s just a passenger along for the ride. 

Divad and Dvd have been giving him space, too. They’ve gone invisible again now that this latest crisis is over. He still feels them, especially Divad, silently urging him away from the mental cliff he’s been staring down at all afternoon. But David hasn’t jumped. He’s not allowed to jump. So there’s nothing for Divad or any of them to worry about. He’s doing what they want him to do, what all of them want him to do, including Farouk. He’s existing. He’s breathing. He’s in his body, experiencing it and all the ways it hurts him. 

He’s trying to give them what they want, Divad and Dvd and Kerry and Syd and Cary and Ptonomy. He doesn’t want to hurt them with his suffering. So he’s trying, he truly is. But god, he wishes that first step was off the cliff and not away from it. 

Ptonomy’s Vermillion pulls up a chair next to the window David is sitting beside. It sits down, posture unnaturally perfect, and stares at him. David accepts this latest inevitability and closes the notebook, sits up from his slump. 

“How are you feeling?” Ptonomy asks. 

David shrugs. “I’m here.” It’s the best answer he can give. It’s what they want from him. 

Ptonomy accepts it. “So what have you been writing? Can I see?”

David doesn’t want to share it, but it doesn’t matter what he wants. He hands over the notebook, waits as Ptonomy flips through it. It hardly matters how crazy it makes him look when he’s irrevocably insane. What are they going to do, drug him? Lock him up? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. 

Ptonomy hands the notebook back. “You’ve written a lot. Has it helped?”

David shrugs again. “It’s something to do.” He looks across the room. Syd is reading a book about all the ways crazy people like him are broken. Kerry is up in the loft beating something up. Cary is at his computers, doing something David will never understand. 

“I guess I should find a better hobby,” David says, looking down. Vermillion have strangely perfect knees. 

“Maybe stick with this one for a while,” Ptonomy says. “You’ve filled a lot of pages. It’s obviously meaningful to you. What do you think about when you write?”

Everything. “Nothing,” David says, and looks out the window. “It just—“ He looks at the buildings, full of normal people, living their normal lives. He wonders what it’s like to have a job in an office. He’s never had a real job. He did a few things while he was in school, and then when he was expelled from college he scraped by doing menial labor while Amy paid his bills. But he’s never tried to be more than he was. He was a mental patient, a drug addict, and then he wasn’t anything at all. He just existed, doing what he was told, taking what he was told to take, saying what he was supposed to say. Yes, Doctor Kissinger, I’m feeling much better now. 

David’s always been such a liar. 

“Just what?” Ptonomy prompts, pulling David back from his thoughts. 

David shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s just my name.”

“Names are meaningful,” Ptonomy says. “They’re part of what makes our identities. They’re how people relate to us. If you had a different name, your life might have taken a different path.”

David very much doubts that. “It’s probably not even my real name. My birth name.”

“That’s right, you were adopted.”

“If you could call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

He was dumped. Shoved into the first of many holes by people who claimed to love him, or presumably they claimed to. He’ll never know if his real parents loved him or not, just like he’ll never know his birth name. “They got rid of me,” he says, finally. “Maybe it was to protect me from Farouk, I don’t know. If that was why, it didn’t work.”

“No,” Ptonomy agrees. “So they gave you up for nothing.”

“Maybe they didn’t want me at all,” David says. His rational mind tried to talk him out of that idea, but— It would make sense, that they didn’t want him.

“Do you want to try to find them?”

The question startles David, even though he’s asked it to himself many times over the past weeks. “I don’t— I don’t even know if they’re still alive. It was thirty years ago. Thirty-one.” He keeps forgetting about that missing year. His birthday doesn’t match his age anymore. Not that it was even his real birthday. He doesn’t know what that is either.

God, he’s just— There’s nothing real in his life. Nothing he can hold on to. He barely exists at all. He’s just fragments, ragged scraps of nonsense badly sewn together. How is this ever going to work? They want him to get better, but there’s no ‘him’ to get better. 

“David?”

“I don’t—“ David swallows. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Find your parents?”

David presses his fingers to his face. “Exist.”

“You already exist,” Ptonomy says. “Whether you want to or not. Existence isn’t something we choose. It’s something that happens.”

“Does it?” David asks, genuinely. “Because I don’t— I’m not a— a person. I’m not even— I don’t have anything real, I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I’m even supposed to be.”

“You don’t have to be anything more than everyone else,” Ptonomy says, in that mix of soothing and angry. “You just have to be yourself.”

“And who is that, exactly? David the boy who grew up in a house in the country? David the— the victim, with Farouk in my head making me crazy? David the broken mind, who’s so fucked that he thinks he’s three people at once?”

“Why not all of that?”

David breathes out, sharp with frustration. “I don’t remember so much of my life. Even before— Even before. I tried so hard to— to make myself a person. And I failed. Now I know just how much more I’ve forgotten and— If there’s a jigsaw puzzle, 500 pieces on the box, but you buy it and take it home and inside it’s just, what, thirty pieces? Fifteen? You’d take it back to the store and yell at them for selling you garbage. And then they’d throw it out.”

“And that’s what you think you are? Garbage?”

“Yes,” David answers, without hesitation. “When a plate breaks, you don't fix it. You just get another plate.”

Ptonomy doesn’t reply to that. What is there to say? It’s a truth David has known about himself for a long, long time, since long before he tied a knot in an extension cord. It’s just the truth. 

“So you want us to get another David?” Ptonomy asks, finally. “Should we go to the David store, pick up a few spares just in case we break the new David, too?”

“There’s already two extra Davids.”

“They’re not Davids. They’re Divad and Dvd.”

“Semantics.”

“No. You want to talk about names? Those are their names, Divad and Dvd. Not David One and David Two. They have their own names because they’re other people. They can’t replace you.”

“Then maybe no one should. What good have I ever done for anyone? What have I given back to the world? I spent years ruining everything I touched. I hurt my parents, I hurt Amy, I got her— I got expelled and I got high and I couldn’t even manage to kill myself. And then I sat in a hospital and did nothing. And when I tried to be something I wasn’t, something better, someone worthy of— of being loved and able to actually give something back to the world after taking so much, I ruined all of that, too.”

God, Divad can’t keep his hands from shaking now. David can’t even keep his hands steady with a whole other person trying to steady them. He is worth so absolutely nothing. 

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” Ptonomy says. “You’ve covered all the details. You wanted to make absolutely sure that you were doing the right thing in killing yourself. But that’s not how this works. Our lives aren’t about what we take and what we give. There’s no balance sheet. If we judged everyone that way, there’d be no one left but the saints, and most of them were just as messed up as the rest of us. They just have better PR.”

If David didn’t feel so awful, he might have laughed at that. But he feels awful.

“You, David, have worth. Not because of anything you did or didn’t do, but because you’re you. You’re a person, not a plate, not a jigsaw puzzle. A person, and the thing about being a person is that no one has it right. I’ve walked through hundreds of minds and I know for a fact that every single person out there is just as scared and screwed-up and imperfect as you. Does that make them worthless?”

David tries to answer, but nothing comes.

“You are not a collection of memories,” Ptonomy continues. “You are who you are now, the choices you make now. You are a part of the people who love you, and if you dismiss yourself then you dismiss them. You can’t hold yourself separate from the world for judgement. You have always been a part of it and every good and bad thing it contains. That list you just rattled off? Where’s everyone else in that? Forget about Farouk and what he did to you. Your birth parents gave you away. Your family couldn’t help you when you were suffering. Your school didn’t give you support. Clockworks might have kept you alive, but their methods were abusive and made everything else worse. Even we failed you. We said we wanted to make you whole, but we couldn’t see past your powers. We put stopping Farouk entirely on your shoulders when you’re the last person who should have to bear that weight. We failed you. Does that make any of us worthless? Should we all kill ourselves too? Are we just one big pile of broken plates? Why shouldn’t we be replaced?”

David gapes at him, completely at a loss. No one has ever— He feels like he’s been knocked flat but he’s still sitting up. 

“It’s easy to blame yourself,” Ptonomy says. “When you have no control over what’s happening to you, blaming yourself feels good because that means it was your fault, your choices. But that’s nothing but a lie you tell yourself. It doesn’t help you, it doesn’t help the people around you. Yes, you’ve hurt people. You’ve made mistakes, some of them terrible. But those actions can’t be judged in a vacuum. You had a monster in your head making you very, very sick. Even now that he’s out, he’s still doing everything he can to keep you sick. Not just by torturing you, but by twisting your thoughts, turning them against you, the way he always has. In another life, where he never found you, where you grew up healthy and safe? All those things you blame yourself for, would you have done them without him?”

Ptonomy waits for an answer. 

“I— No,” David says, because god, no, he never wanted any of it. 

“Then that’s who you are. That’s who David is. You need a foundation to build your new life on? That’s your foundation. So write it down. Open your notebook and write it down.”

David can only comply. He opens the notebook, flips past all the Davids to the next blank page. He holds the pen and stops. “What should I—”

“The truth,” Ptonomy says. “David’s truth. Not the lies. Not the story you keep telling yourself.”

What is his truth? What would he have chosen, if he’d ever had a choice?

His truth is— 

His truth is no. NO. That’s his truth, the one thing he’s been screaming deep inside for so long it just became noise. No to the pain, to the fear, to being made into something he never wanted to be. No to all of it. 

_NO,_ he writes, the lines angry and pressed deep into the page. He writes it again, again, again, so hard he rips the paper. 

He’s shaking, but god, god, now it feels good. 

“Keep writing it,” Ptonomy says. “Write your name. Write your truth. This is your foundation. Build on it.”

David doesn’t answer. He turns to a clean page and he writes. He makes his first real choice, his first step away from the cliff. He chooses to say no.


	16. Day 4: NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

It’s hard to avoid Cary when they’re all together in his lab all the time, working hard to keep David alive. But Kerry’s trying anyway, even if she has to actually leave the lab to do it.

She doesn’t like avoiding Cary. She likes it even less than avoiding David. She’s not even mad at Cary like she was when she avoided him last year. She’s just—

She needs to be on her own, for a while.

That’s something new for her, even newer than eating. She's never needed to be on her own. Even when she avoided Cary before, it wasn't because she wanted to be alone. She just couldn't look at him without being mad at him for not being there when she needed him. It was the opposite of how she's feeling now, whatever it is she's feeling now.

She meant everything she said to David. Being alive, being outside all the time-- It's so much. New things keep happening to her, like this new thing of needing to be alone. She doesn't even understand what it means. Before, if she was upset, she went into Cary. And even when she couldn't do that anymore, she still went to him and he still held her.

This is different. It's new. She doesn't know if she likes it. 

So of course Cary finds her anyway, following her out into the hall, and she can't concentrate on figuring it if she likes being alone because he's with her. And now she’s annoyed that he’s with her, and that’s even newer, and she hates this feeling for sure. 

“Kerry?” Cary calls, worried. 

Kerry walks faster. Cary walks faster to keep up with her.

"Kerry?" Cary calls again, more worried.

"Leave me alone," Kerry says, and that makes Cary even more worried. She breaks into a run and leaves him in her dust. But once she's alone, she feels another new thing. Instead of running away, she wants to go back to him. To talk.

Kerry doesn't like talking. It's hard and slow and she has to remember so many words. When she stayed inside of Cary all the time, he knew her thoughts without her having to say them. He talked to her aloud, and that was fine. She never minded listening. Once she started spending more time outside of him, she got used to speaking. She even got used to speaking to other people. But it's never come naturally to her.

She's probably talked more to David than she's ever talked to anyone but Cary. Maybe that's why she wants to talk to Cary now. 

She turns around and runs back. Cary hasn't gone far. He's still standing in the hall, pretty close to where she left him. 

He's upset. She made him upset.

"Cary?" she calls, and now she's the one who's worried.

"I just-- I just wanted to see if you were okay," Cary says, hesitant. "The things you said-- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have--" He turns to go.

"Wait," Kerry says, and closes the distance between them. Then she doesn't know what to say. She bounces on her heels twice. "Ask me what you were going to ask me."

Cary adjusts his glasses. He always does that when he's nervous. "Um. Are you? Okay?"

"I don't know," Kerry says, excitedly. "I don't know? I'm feeling a lot of things and they're new?"

"Oh! Okay, well, um. Do you want to talk about them? These new feelings?"

"I think--" She thinks. "I don't."

"Oh."

"Yet," she adds. "Because-- Because I need to think about them myself first. On my own."

"That is new," Cary says, impressed. "Well. Should I leave you to it?"

She wants to, but she doesn't want to. She wants to keep talking to him, just about something else. "Do you want to talk about something?" She hesitates, then plunges on. "We could talk about what I said to David."

"That is something I'd like to discuss," Cary says, going all serious, the way he does. Then he looks around. "Why don't we sit out in the garden? Up on the roof?"

The garden would be nicer than the hallway. And the lab is full of people, and the cafeteria is full of food, so... "Sure."

The garden is much nicer than the hallway. Kerry hasn't spent much time in it, despite living here for over a year now. It's an outside thing, and she's only been truly outside of Cary for a few weeks. She looks at the city around them. She's been out in it with Cary but now she wants to go on her own. She's never gone to new places on her own.

"Wow," she says, feeling kinda dizzy. 

"It is quite a view," Cary says, and she realizes he didn't understand her. Like David, apologizing for the wrong thing.

Cary always understood exactly what she meant when she was talking to him from the inside. And she didn't care if anyone else understood her. If they didn’t, that was their fault, not hers, because Cary always understood her perfectly. 

She wants to correct him, but then she doesn’t want to. She wants to let it happen, this misunderstanding between them. She wants to experience it. 

“So,” Cary begins. “What you said to David. I'm sorry, I never-- I didn't mean to make you feel that you were-- You were never just a passenger to me, never."

Maybe she doesn't want to experience too much misunderstanding. 

"I know," she says, and she does. She knows it wasn't something he did to her. He's only ever wanted to protect her, the way she's always protected him. "It wasn't--" Ugh, words are so hard sometimes. She's not sure what it is.

"I never wanted you to be scared," Cary says, his eyes mournful. "I don't want you to be scared now. If there was any way I could fix us, put things back the way they were--"

"No," Kerry says, even as she realizes it. "No. I don't-- You shouldn't do that."

That surprises him. "I shouldn't?"

She thinks about it some more, but that only makes her more certain. "You shouldn't."

Cary is entirely taken aback. "Well," he says, adjusting his glasses. "I must admit I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"I don't know either," Kerry admits. "But-- I think--" She thinks as hard as she can, as hard as she thought when she was trying to make David understand that living was hard but they could get through it together. "I think-- If I could still hide inside you, I would. But I can't and that's-- I have to stay outside and the longer I stay outside, the more-- the more things keep happening. And I don't understand them but I want to? I want to-- understand-- I want--" She pauses as something comes together in her head. "I want to understand myself," she says, and it's a revelation.

Cary stares at her for a long time.

"Did you-- Did you not? Understand yourself?" he asks, quietly.

"I thought I did," Kerry says, thinking back. She was the fighter, the muscle, the one who kept Cary safe. And when she wasn't that, she hid. Like Divad and Dvd hid, because they were-- Because they were afraid of being seen. 

She was afraid of being seen, even when she was protecting Cary, even when she was fighting.

It was a misunderstanding. She misunderstood herself. She didn't even know that was a thing she could do, that anyone could do.

"Do you understand yourself?" she asks Cary.

"My goodness," Cary says, putting his hand over his heart like she just hit him there. "I-- I think I do. I hope I do."

Kerry looks at the flowers in the garden. There are bees buzzing around them, landing at the centers of them and then bustling around inside the petals. Do bees understand themselves? Do flowers? She looks at the city. Does everyone in the city understand themselves, too? There so many of them. She never thought about how many people there are in the city, in the whole world.

"Wow," she says, stunned.

"Kerry," Cary says, leaning forward. "I-- I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"It's okay," she tells him. "I didn't either." And she didn't. Just like David didn't know he had other people inside him. He was walking around his whole life and he didn't know what was inside him. Just like her.

Just like her.

"Now I can find out," she says, and-- Wow. She wants to find out.

She's better not find out there's any people inside her. She doesn't think so, but David didn't think so either, and look what happened to him. Cary's the only one who's allowed to be inside her.

Cary.

She hasn't let him back inside her, with everything happening, not for days. He's used to being outside, but it's not-- "Do you need to go back inside me?"

He stares at her again. "I--"

"I know it's weird," Kerry says, because it's really weird, him being inside her. It's not how they were meant to fit together and it's awkward and kinda hurts and it's hard to get him out again. But that's how they are now. It's how they need to stay, or else--

Something else clicks in her head.

Cary's old and she's not, because she hid inside him for so long. But now he goes inside her and-- and that means--

"You need to go inside," Kerry insists. "Cary, you have to!"

"I do?"

"Yes!" She grabs his wrist and pulls his hand to her chest. "Now!"

He tries to pull his hand back, but she doesn't let go. "Kerry--"

"If you don't get inside me, you'll die!"

"Kerry--"

"You have to hide inside me," Kerry insists. "You have to! For just as long as I did, because if you don't--"

She can't say it. But he understands her anyway.

"Oh, Kerry," Cary says, and pulls her into his arms.

She should be-- She needs to be like he was. She needs to be outside so he can be inside. She needs to protect him so he'll never leave her. She should be the one holding him. But she lets him hold her anyway.

"I can't do that," he says, gently. "I can't hide. That's not who I am."

"It's who you should be," Kerry says, stubbornly.

"I'm sorry," he says, but keeps holding her. "You know, I always thought--" He stops.

She pulls out of his arms so she can look at him. He's talking and she wants to listen. She wants to understand.

"It should have been you who was outside, when we were born," Cary continues, quietly. "I was the one who was wrong. The wrong gender, the wrong race. If it had been you, everything would have been-- Maybe it wouldn't have been perfect. But you would have been happy. Our parents wouldn't have divorced. Mom wouldn't have--"

Kerry knows what he won't say. She saw it from inside him, even if she didn't understand what was happening until much, much later. Mom was drunk all the time, after Dad left. She was drunk and mean and-- 

Kerry was afraid of her. She was afraid of being yelled at and smacked, so she let Cary be yelled at and smacked and she hid like a coward.

"No," Kerry says, angry at herself. "It wasn't your fault."

Cary gives her a sad smile. "It was. Even if--" He takes a deep breath. "I know it wasn't. Melanie helped me see that. But it's still-- These things stay with us, no matter how hard we try to escape them. That's why I've always tried so hard to keep you safe. To protect you. But I think-- I protected you too much. I didn't help you to live your life. I haven't been helping you enough now, with everything you've been going through."

Kerry wants to protest, but she knows it's the truth. She told David as much, and saying it out loud meant she told Cary, too. She nods.

"I'm going to tell you the same thing I told David. There are things we've lost that we'll never get back. But we're here and we're not alone, and it's never too late as long as that's true."

Kerry wants to accept that, but-- "But if you stay outside me, one day-- one day--"

One day he'll be dead, and she'll be alone. Like Melanie. There could be a whole world full of people around her and she'd still be alone.

"We're never alone as long as we have people who love us," he tells her. "And we have so many people who love us. Just like David does. You know how hard it is for him to see that, but it doesn't mean it isn't true."

Kerry nods. She thought David was stupid for not seeing that. They've all been trying to help him but it was like he couldn't see them at all.

But she couldn't see it either. All she saw was Cary.

"I think what David's going through is an opportunity for all of us," Cary continues. "We've all been through so much. Not just in these past weeks, but throughout our lives. We all need support and protection the same way David does. We all need help to heal from the pain we've experienced. These things never go away, but we learn to live with them. And the best way to do that is together. All of us."

Together. All of them, not just Cary and Kerry. Not just Kerry and David. 

Kerry likes the way that makes her feel. She smiles at Cary and he smiles back, and everything's okay again.

"So what do you think we should all work on together first?" Cary asks.

"Food," Kerry says, without hesitation. "Every time I go down to the cafeteria, I don't know what to pick. There's so many different things, and I don't-- I don't know what I should like or what I need to eat or what David needs or--"

"Okay, okay," Cary says, fondly. "You know, I don't think David knows what he should be eating either. I reviewed all of Division 3's footage of him and he has terrible eating habits. He's had almost nothing but waffles and cherry pie since he came back. That's not good for anyone."

"Waffles are bad for him?" Kerry asks, alarmed.

"Waffles and pie are treats," Cary explains. "But they don't give him what he needs to be healthy and strong. He eats like-- Well, he eats like someone who's never taken very good care of himself and has spent a good part of his life in an abusive mental hospital."

"Then he's not allowed to have any more waffles," Kerry decides, firmly.

"Not for a while," Cary agrees. "How about we make up a meal plan for everyone to follow? That's a guide for what kinds of foods are good for us to eat every day."

A guide sounds really helpful. "Yeah," she agrees, and immediately feels better about the cafeteria. She doesn't think it'll be so scary once she has a guide. "And then we can all eat and get better together."

"We can," Cary says, and he looks at her like he's so proud of her he could burst.

§

David was right. He’s going to need a lot more notebooks.

He’s written NO so many times that he’s filled up the rest of the pages. Every single one of them felt good to write. He feels like something’s been released in him, something he’s been holding back for so, so long. 

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. 

No, he didn’t want to hurt anyone. No, none of this was his choice. No, he doesn’t want all the fear and pain that’s been inflicted on him. No, this wasn’t meant to be his life. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. No to all of it, to every single miserable day he’s lived since Farouk got hold of him. 

He wrote through dinner, eating with one hand, writing with the other. Everyone’s settling in for the night, but he can’t stop writing. He doesn’t even care that it’s making his hand cramp. He wants to write NO forever, to graffiti it on every wall, to write it across the whole sky in massive letters made out of clouds. To carve it into the moon, two giant, gouged-out scars that everyone will have to see every single day forever. 

But then the pen runs out of ink. He feels a spike of panic, but Divad dulls it. He’s okay. He’s okay. It’s just a pen. He can get another pen. 

His hand really hurts. Maybe he needs to take a break. He stares at the last page of NOs, flips back through all the others. 

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. 

“No,” he says aloud. It's almost the first thing he’s said since he started writing and didn’t stop. 

“David?” It’s Syd. She’s in her pyjamas. Her hair is in pigtails. She’s wearing the compass locket, the one that can find him anywhere. The cut on her lips is healing. 

It hurts to look at her. Especially when she— It’s like nothing’s changed, like he didn’t— Like she didn’t—

“I didn’t—“ He says, something else working it’s way free now that he’s started. 

He’s still sitting at the table, and she sits down next to him. She listens. 

He doesn’t know what he needs to say. He looks down at the notebook again. He traces his fingertips over the NOs, each of them carved deep into the page. He’d be able to read them even without the ink. 

He knows she must have heard what he said before. About the desert, about Farouk controlling his body, using him to— He knows she heard it. But he needs to say it again, to her, now. 

“I didn’t want it,” he says, forcing himself to look at her face instead of the notebook. “He made me do so many—“ He swallows.

“David—“

“No. No, let me— I have to— I didn’t want it. It’s not fair that you were— That you blamed me. Not just about— I was taken away and I was scared and confused and nothing made any sense and you acted like it was my fault, like I chose to leave. I didn’t choose anything! I was— I was taken, by you, by him, I don’t—“ Breathe, breathe. “All I wanted to do was stay and be happy. That’s all I ever— And you blamed me for something I didn’t do, you were so angry. You were right there, you saw what happened, you know that wasn’t— You knew. Why did you blame me when you knew? Was it all him? Or did you— Do you really think that’s what I am?”

Syd waits until he’s done, when he can’t say anything more. She looks down. Looks at him again. 

“You’re right,” she admits. “It wasn’t just him. I was— It was a long year, waiting for you. It was—“ She looks up, presses her lips together, the way she does when she’s trying to be strong. “I kept asking myself if it was me, if you’d got free of whatever took you but then you didn’t want to come back because of me. Or maybe you were dead. Maybe I took too long, trying to find you. I tried to keep you safe but something took you right in front of me. I waited and I waited, holding my breath because I needed you to be alive. I needed—“ She swallows. “And then there you were. You were just the same, you didn’t even know how long you’d been gone. It felt like a joke, a sick joke because I changed so much and you didn’t change at all. And that made me angry. I was angry at myself and then I was angry with you for putting me through everything alone. For not changing with me. It wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

It’s a lot to take in. 

It’s a lot. It’s a whole year of a lot, a whole year that didn’t happen for him. He didn’t see it before. He was so hurt and confused that he couldn’t see that she was hurt and confused, too. He just needed her the way he always needed her. The way—

The way he still does. If he’s being honest with himself. If he’s trying to start all of this only with the real truths, and not the lies he’s clung to to survive.

But he can’t ask that of her. He can’t ask it of anyone, to bear his burdens with him, but especially her. 

“I’m sorry, too,” he says, and means it. Not just because he hurt her, because he knows he wasn’t— He accepts that he wasn’t in control of himself, of anything, not then. He was caught in madness and did mad, terrible things because of that. 

He’s sorry because she deserves his pain the least of anyone. Even less than he deserves it. And he’s trying to accept that he doesn’t deserve it. 

When she— In the desert, when she came to him and stopped him and pointed a gun at him. Something in him broke when she turned on him, when she called him every awful thing he’s always fought against so hard, and then proved how much she meant it by pulling the trigger. He was desperate after that, he lost himself completely. He knows Dvd tried to make him feel better by taking the blame for their plan, and he knows Farouk made Syd say those things because her words were meant to break him. 

He still broke. He was broken. His mind slipped a gear and the whole machinery of him flew apart. He felt— It was like a fever consuming him, burning him up. Everything had spun so far out of control, he just needed to pull something back. So he crawled over the sand and reached into her mind and tried to take her back. To undo whatever Farouk had done to her to make her say every awful thing she said. But it was already too late, and all he did was break her the way she had broken him. 

And then—

“God, I’m sorry,” he says, turning away and putting his face in his hands. He shouldn’t cry. He doesn’t deserve to cry when he did that to her. He did it. Farouk took away every other choice but he still did it. 

He’s lost so much of himself, and he took away a piece of her. That’s what he did, that’s what Farouk turned him into. He doesn’t want that. He never wanted that. He screamed NO with all his might, but he couldn’t do anything to stop the freight train, barreling down until it ran him over. 

He’s so afraid of what else he might be capable of. He’s terrified that one day he’ll be turned into exactly what she said he already was. It’s another train barreling down the tracks and he doesn’t know if anyone can help him get free. 

God, he shouldn’t cry. But he’s breaking down, sobbing into his hands, his chest heaving. 

“David,” Syd calls to him, worried, but she can’t comfort him here, body against body. She shouldn’t have to comfort him at all. He’s hurting her again, spilling his pain all over her, making her suffer with him when he’s the one who hurt her. 

He stumbles up from the table, stumbles away. He’s fallen apart completely and all he feels is shame. He’s so shameful, this thing he’s become, the things he did, even if he didn’t choose to do them and didn’t want them and he only did them in the throes of madness. He still did them and he’s ashamed, and he can’t—

He ends up in a corner of the lab, pressed against the walls like he’s trying to hide inside them. He’s bawling, feverish with grief and shame and terror, and he slides down the wall, legs folding under him. 

All of it just keeps coming out of him. He’s been blown open, his chest a ragged wound that feels like it will never, ever close. The shame burns hottest of all, like glowing coals shoved into his heart, burning him slow and relentless from the inside until it turns him to ashes. 

He’s vaguely aware of everyone crowding together, trying to figure out how to help him. He doesn’t want them to. He doesn’t deserve it. 

Someone touches his shoulder and he pulls away from their hand. But the hand follows him. It touches the side of his face, where his own hands can’t cover. 

The hand is wearing a glove. 

He turns to look, unbelieving. 

Syd is kneeling beside him, touching him, her gloves hand cupping his flushed, wet face. She’s crying too, delicate tears tracking silently down her cheeks. She keeps touching him. 

She’s never— She’s touched him for real before, body against body, but only a few times, mostly to save his life. He’s saved every moment in his memory because they’re so precious to him. Her hand pulling him out of the pool. Her body covering his to save him from Walter’s bullets. Her fingers against his lips after he caught the bullets, making them land safely in his hand, so he wouldn’t kiss her in the flush of victory. 

She’s never touched him just to touch him. She’s never— It hurts her, to touch him. He hurts her. 

She’s touching him anyway. 

He’s stopped sobbing, but his tears spill out faster, pouring down and soaking her glove. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t— He can’t— She shouldn’t— 

“David,” she says, looking him in the eyes, holding his attention. “I forgive you, okay? I forgive you. Please just— Try to forgive yourself. Please?”

She shouldn’t forgive him. She shouldn’t touch him. She should hate him. She should be physically sick just looking at him. Every time she hears his voice, she should want to throw up.

But she’s not. She’s doesn’t. She’s crying over him and she’s trying to help him get better. 

He doesn’t understand. He can’t. It’s beyond him. But—

Maybe he doesn’t have to understand. Maybe he can just let it happen. Maybe that’s enough.


	17. Day 5: Remember the cat?

David wakes late the next morning. His chest still hurts, a dull ache when he breathes. He feels tired, for all the hours he slept, for all that they were deep and dreamless. 

Yesterday was— It was— It turned him upside-down and ripped him wide open and— 

He feels sore. Not just his hand from writing, his chest and throat from sobbing, his jaw and his head and his bruised shins. His soul feels sore, his heart feels sore. 

If this is what it’s like to get better, getting better might actually kill him. 

He probably shouldn’t think of that as two birds with one stone. 

He breathes out, groans as he pushes himself into a sit. There’s a glass of water by his bed and he drinks all of it. God he’s thirsty. He must have cried himself into a state of dehydration last night. 

He rubs his face, gets to his unsteady feet. He goes to the bathroom and washes up, showers long and hot, and emerges dressed and feeling vaguely human. When he gets out, breakfast is waiting for him, and so is Syd. 

He has to force himself not to run back into the bathroom and stay there. His stomach rumbles, so he focuses on the food. He can just about handle the concept of breakfast. 

Syd lets him eat. She’s still working her way through that psychology book. He doesn’t like to think about how many diagnoses he qualifies for by now. Dissociative identity disorder. Suicidal ideation. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Anxiety, panic disorder, depression, addiction, traumatic memory loss. At least he’s not actually schizophrenic anymore. 

He pauses, mid-chew. Is he not actually schizophrenic anymore? He honestly has no idea. He was diagnosed because of the voices and hallucinations, but between his powers, his alters, and Farouk, he thinks everything is explained. Even the delusions, the confused thinking, the paranoia, his swiss-cheese mind. 

Maybe it doesn’t matter what the cause is if all the symptoms add up to the same result. That’s all any diagnosis amounts to, in his experience: just a collection of symptoms. Maybe Farouk is his schizophrenia. 

It’s so strange. He honestly believed he was schizophrenic for decades. He was diagnosed when he was a teenager, but got the retroactive diagnosis of childhood schizophrenia on top of that. Maybe he questioned it in the memories he lost. But he doesn’t remember questioning it. It was just another truth he accepted, until it wasn’t true anymore. 

His past is like quicksand. He wishes Ptonomy could still walk through his mind with him, help him make sense of what’s left. David didn’t fully appreciate that ability when he first came to Summerland. He was impressed, but he didn’t understand why he needed it, and it all kept going wrong anyway. Between Dvd and Farouk, his mind was a battleground, but he wasn’t allowed to remember anyone doing the fighting. He just kept tripping over the rubble, confused and scared and completely unaware. 

It’s no wonder he kept pissing Ptonomy off. David’s mind didn’t make any sense to himself, much less anyone else. 

David’s very glad that his mind makes sense to Ptonomy now. He’s probably the only one who actually understands the broken mess of David’s brain. Maybe being the memory guy was only holding him back. He’s the best therapist David’s ever had by miles, and he’s had a lot of therapists.

To be fair to his old therapists, none of them could have known his actual diagnoses, which made it extremely difficult to help him get better. But still. Ptonomy has a way of slicing through David’s defensive bullshit and right into his heart. It’s like being operated on without anesthesia, but at least the cuts are clean and quick. 

But like actually being operated on without an aesthetic, David wonders if he’ll survive the shock of the cure. He’s sure he’ll be expected to endure another session today, and he’s already dreading it. 

He pushes aside his plate, slumps forward, and rests his head in his arms. He needs a break. He’d ask to step out of his body, but he knows what the answer will be. No one will want to risk him refusing to step back into it again. He can’t even astral project with the crown on. The whole thing makes him feel so stuck. Ironic, to feel trapped in his body when he’s more in control of it than he has been for his entire life. 

A hand strokes his hair, and David goes still. He didn’t hear anyone else approach the table, which means—

He peeks up from the pillow of his arms. It’s Syd. 

“Did I miss something?” David asks, genuinely confused. Last night he could understand. Syd was trying to save his life again, in a way. He gets why she would put up with touching him for that, even if he disagrees that he deserved it. But he’s not a blubbering mess now. He’s just exhausted. 

“You were gone for a year,” Syd says, still stroking his hair like it fascinates her. “Remember the cat?”

“You were swapping with it.” David might have forgotten a lot of his life, but he’s never going to forget Syd the cat. 

“She’s my therapy animal. Her name’s Matilda. I practice swapping with her so I can control my power, but the real reason I got her was to help with my haphephobia. My fear of touch.”

David doesn’t want her to stop stroking his hair, so he doesn’t raise his head. Instead he frowns down at the table. “You don’t have haphephobia.”

“I don’t?”

“No, you— It’s just your powers. It’s physical, not mental.”

“I’m touching you now, like I touch Matilda.”

“She’s a cat.”

“And it feels the same,” Syd says. “David, I meant what I said. I’ve spent the past year changing. You’re not the only one who needed to get better. I’m still working on myself. I probably always will be. When you left, I was antisocial—“

He does raise his head, then, and she takes her hand away. “But—“

She hushes him. “I was antisocial and I had haphephobia. And now I lead Division 3’s strategy department and I’m working on my fear of touch. You missed that.”

David missed most of that even for the time he’s been back. He vaguely remembers Ptonomy telling him how each of them was in charge of a different part of Division 3, but he never really processed any of it. He never really got his bearings at all after waking up that day. He hadn’t noticed Syd being in charge, but looking back he barely noticed anything that didn’t center around killing Farouk or helping Farouk or rushing to Syd or Future Syd every time something went wrong, which it did, constantly. 

God, everything has been so exhausting all the time. From the moment he got scooped up to now. He feels so utterly done. He puts his head back down.

“You don’t have a fear of touch,” David says to the table, with unaccountable stubbornness. “You just didn’t understand your power.”

“Actually, I did understand my power. I’ve known about it since I was a teenager. I used it. I couldn’t control it very well, but I used it. I told you, remember? About my mother’s boyfriend?”

She did. She told him, and then she showed it to him, in vivid, disturbing detail. And there was the time she swapped with that boy and beat up her bullies. And she went to the club and bumped into all those people, swapping and swapping. 

Why did he think she didn’t understand her powers? She even tried to tell him not to kiss her in Clockworks, as he rushed in and did it anyway. He heard her thought, her warning, but by then he’d long since given up on believing everything he heard. Because he was schizophrenic and the voices weren’t real. 

Except they were extremely real. Too real. His life would probably be easier and happier if he really was schizophrenic after all, if it meant he didn’t have so many people stomping around in his head. 

Dvd grumbles from the back of his mind, not appreciating the insult. David thinks back an apology, then thinks about how completely insane he is to be having casual conversations with himself. 

He’s the one who didn’t understand his powers, who didn’t understand anything. He still doesn’t, apparently. Because he missed it. He missed a year and then he missed the rest because he was too busy spinning in circles to be anything but constantly dizzy. 

“Wait,” he says, picking up his head again because circles make him think of loops. “You showed me. You were a baby. You hated being touched.”

“Yes.”

“Because of your power.”

“Yes.”

And now he’s confused again.

Syd looks at him with familiar, tolerant affection. It makes David’s sore heart ache a little more. “It’s still not— It takes work, to tolerate it. Habituation. That’s why I need Matilda. That’s why—“ She stops and flashes guilty. 

“What?”

“It was probably wrong,” Syd says, chagrined. “But since you’ve been back, when you’ve been asleep. I’ve been touching you.”

David sits up. “What?”

“I needed to practice,” she says, both a confession and a defense. “I didn’t want to tell you until I was ready.”

David doesn’t know if he’s upset because he feels violated or if he’s upset because he was asleep and missed it. She’s been touching him? For weeks? And he didn’t know?

God, what is his life?

“You’re upset,” Syd says. 

David doesn’t even know what to say to that. He just— he doesn’t know what to say. 

“I’m sorry,” Syd says, wincing. “I didn’t want you to— I know how important touch is for you. I know it hurts you that we can’t even hold hands. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tolerate— But I wanted to be able to hold hands. With you.” She drops her gaze. 

David doesn’t know what to say to that either. He doesn’t know where to start, where to end. They’re over, aren’t they? He doesn’t see how they could be anything but over. They’re never going to hold hands. Even if Syd has somehow managed to tolerate touching him, he ruined all of that. It’s done, it’s over, no hope of return. 

It’s over. His heart hurts more again, and not just a little. 

He doesn’t understand why she’s being so— Why she’s sitting here, talking to him like he didn’t— He doesn’t understand why she forgave him. He doesn’t understand anything. 

Maybe he just doesn’t understand Syd. He thought he did, but he obviously didn’t. Even when she forced him to watch her life over and over, he didn’t understand her. He tried, he did, he really tried. He thought he’d got it in the end. But he didn’t get anything. 

Maybe he’s just stupid. Maybe decades of psychiatric medication damaged him for life. Schizophrenia is supposed to be associated with cognitive impairment. Maybe his Farouk schizophrenia impaired his cognition along with everything else. Great, another reason he’ll never be safe to let out. He’ll never be trusted with his powers once they realize he’s brain damaged. 

Ha. As if he has any brain left at all. Maybe Farouk’s not such a genius manipulator if he’s spent most of his time manipulating someone so utterly stupid. 

From the back of his mind, Divad sends a quiet warning. David thinks at him to leave him alone. He’s not in the mood. He might not be allowed to be suicidal, but he can still be grumpy. 

“David?”

David snaps out of his thoughts and realizes Syd is still waiting for his response. He still doesn’t know what to say. So he says what he thinks he should say. 

“It’s fine,” he lies. “I wasn’t even awake. It’s fine.”

Syd doesn’t look like she believes him. But she probably knows better than to believe him by now. 

“So where’s Matilda?” David asks, changing the subject to something he can actually wrap his head around, like the existence of a cat. 

Syd shrugs. “She’s around. She’s very independent. She shows up when she’s hungry.”

“Sounds like your kind of therapy animal,” David says, meaning it as a joke but wincing as it comes out rude. “Okay, maybe it’s not fine.”

“Obviously,” Syd says, with a complete lack of surprise. But she softens. “I should have told you. I should have asked. I guess we’ve both been bad about asking first.”

What little remains of David’s brain struggles to process that. “I drugged you and had sex with you,” he reminds her, parroting back her words. 

“We’ve already dealt with what happened in the desert. The sex was— neither of us was in any condition to consent. I was drunk. You were in the middle of a psychotic break.”

“And that makes it okay?!”

“No. But it wasn’t— I thought—“ She struggles for the right words. “I thought it was something much worse.”

David feels sick. He feels physically ill. It’s nothing he hasn’t thought about himself, accused himself of. But it’s a whole other thing to hear it from her. 

She thought he altered her mind so he could have sex with her. So he could rape her. 

Maybe that’s exactly what he did. 

He wants to get up and leave. He wants to walk away from this entire conversation. He wants to go back into the bathroom and throw up every last bite of his waffles. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to eat waffles again. 

“David,” Syd urges. “Stop it. Please. Stop hurting yourself.”

“It’s not me I hurt!” David says, too loud. “I can’t— How can you just be okay with this?”

“Because I understand what it’s like. I understand, David. You know I do. I know what it’s like to think you’re doing something that will fix everything, but the moment it’s done you realize you’ve made everything so much worse. That you violated someone. That in doing so you violated yourself.”

“It’s not the same,” David insists. “You were a kid.”

“And Farouk used me to make you lose your mind. Is that any better? Is that worse? Think about what Ptonomy said. Would you have done it if you had the choice?”

“No, but—“

“Then it’s not who you are,” she says, firmly. 

He feels like he should have some kind of argument against that. He still did that to her, even if he did it because of what she did to him, because of what Farouk did to both of them. But trying to untangle the confusion of culpability is beyond him. He can’t even just blame himself for everything anymore, because Ptonomy cut that out of him before he even knew he was bleeding. 

“Don’t make this part of your foundation,” Syd continues. “Don’t keep any of that monster’s poison in your head. If you let it stay in you, it will kill you. It will help him turn you into whatever it is he wants to turn you into.”

“But—“

“No. I don’t want that. I don’t want to let him use me to hurt you again. I don’t want to be the reason you end the world. Neither of us needs to carry that. So I forgive you, and I need you to forgive yourself. You don’t have to do it now, but you have to start. You have to try. That’s the only way you’re going to get better.”

David can’t. He can’t. He gets up and walks away.

§

David sits by the window and tells everyone to leave him alone. He can’t do this anymore. He can’t listen to people tell him why he can’t punish himself. He can’t sit there while they verbally reach into his head and change him into who they want him to be.

He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know who he wants to be. But he knows that everyone is still trying to erase him. 

He knows that he exists. By whatever definition he can manage to apply, he unquestionably exists. He thinks, he feels pain, he has a body. He doesn’t walk through walls when he presses himself against them. So he knows that he exists, even if he doesn’t want to. 

He knows what he doesn’t want to be. He knows a lot of things he doesn’t want to know about himself or remember. He knows and has forgotten a lifetime of things he never wanted to be party to. He knows he wouldn’t have done any of it if he had any choice, and he knows he didn’t have any choice. 

But that’s all he’s got. It’s so little. He doesn’t know what else anyone can find in him, not even Ptonomy. If there’s anything left to salvage. 

Ptonomy was right, of course. It did feel good to punish himself. It felt right. It’s what the world taught him was right. If he did something wrong then he was punished. His parents weren’t especially harsh, but he was— He _remembers_ being a difficult child, a troubled teenager. They dealt with his lack of self-control by trying to control him. There was so much yelling, slammed doors, cold silences. Restrictions on his freedom. They were convinced that the only way to make him stop acting out was to take things away from him. All it did was make him act out more. 

It didn’t end with his parents. The world didn’t like him either and made that plain. He was forced to take medication and supervised to ensure his compliance. He was arrested, sometimes violently. He spent so much time locked up in jail cells and hospitals that the two spaces blurred together, indistinguishable except for the type of violence his captors inflicted on him.

His only solace was Amy. But she didn’t know what to do with him either, except to find another prison for him. 

So what could he have done but accepted what the world told him was his truth? That he was broken and wrong and bad and because of that he deserved to be punished. And maybe it was just easier all-round if David cut to the chase and punished himself. Maybe if he punished himself enough, he’d finally learn his lessons and stop being broken and wrong and bad. 

He never once experienced forgiveness. He doesn’t know how to forgive himself. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to learn from it. 

He knows Syd is right. He knows that if he keeps hurting himself he’ll never get better. He knows that if he lets Farouk’s poison into his new foundation, it will eat away it away until the whole thing crumbles, and he knows how little effort it will take to break him all over again. 

But he can’t forgive himself. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t deserve the attempt. 

The obvious solution to all of this is the only one he’s utterly unable to use. If he can’t be stable, if he’s a danger to the world, then he should kill himself. 

But he can’t. He’s not allowed because of Farouk, and he’s not allowed because it would hurt everyone who loves him. And he’s so tired of hurting everyone who loves him. 

He’s at an impasse. It’s not so much that he’s been left with only one choice, but with no choices at all. 

So he sits by the window. He looks out at the world and knows he’ll never belong to it. He’ll never be part of it. It’s impossible. They’re over, him and the world. It’s done, it’s over, no hope of return. 

He hears the soft clack of nails against the hard floor, and Syd’s cat walks up to him and stares at him. 

“Syd, please,” David grits out. He just wants to be left alone. Swapping into a cat won’t change that, no matter how fluffy Matilda is. 

The cat keeps staring at him. Then she meows. When he doesn’t respond, she walks up to his legs and rubs herself against them, marking him with her scent. 

Okay, maybe that’s not Syd. Unless it is? 

He picks Matilda up and stares into her eyes. “Are you Syd?” he asks. 

Matilda meows at him and paws at his face. 

“Okay, not Syd.” He sets her down on his lap and she stares at him some more. Then she stretches, digging her claws through his pants for an eye-watering moment before settling down in his lap like she owns it. 

So now apparently this is happening. He has a cat curled up on his lap. He can’t push her off, so he does the only thing anyone could do with a cute, fluffy cat on their lap. He pets her. 

She starts purring. The rumble is low and soothing. He keeps petting her and she rumbles like a tiny racing motor. 

He can see why Syd picked her as her therapy cat. Matilda is extremely calming to touch. 

He thinks of Syd’s hand on his cheek last night. Her hand on his head, petting him like he’s petting Matilda. 

He can’t believe she’s been touching him. For weeks. He just can’t even begin to process it.

It feels—

It feels cruel. The one thing he always, always wanted for them, and he gets it and loses it before he even knows it was something they could have. It feels like the summation of the joke that is his life. The punchline. 

He could have held her hand. But he ruined everything. 

Maybe he’s glad she didn’t tell him. He doesn’t deserve whatever effort she has to spend to touch him. He doesn’t deserve anything, much less forgiveness. Hers or his own. 

He stops trying to make sense of his life and focuses on petting Matilda. It must be nice to be a cat. There’s nothing complicated about her life. No one tries to make her do things. Maybe she gets taken to the vet once in a while, and sometimes she’s inexplicably a human being, but it still sounds blissful to David. He never wanted his life to be complicated. He never wanted the responsibility that his powers suddenly thrust upon him. He just wants to live somewhere quiet and green and to not be alone. But he’s never going to get any of that. He just won’t. 

He doesn’t cry, for once. He’s all cried out. He just feels sad and doesn’t try to feel anything else. And he pets Matilda and listens to her purring.


	18. Day 5: My sentiments exactly.

By lunchtime, David has managed to chase everyone else out of the lab. 

They didn’t want to leave him alone. But he reminded them that it’s impossible for him to be alone because he has two people hovering around in his head, just itching for the chance to pop out and protect him. So it’s safe for them to let him have five whole minutes of peace and quiet to himself. Truly, it is.

He’ll have to apologize later for being awful to them. But that’s all he spends his time doing anyway. Being awful and apologizing for it, awfully. 

Even Matilda had enough of him, startled out of his lap by his petulant shouting. Good. He didn’t ask her to sit on his lap and purr at him. Now she knows better. 

God, he’s in a foul mood. But he has nothing to feel good about. So he’s just going to wallow for as long as he’s allowed. That’s his choice and even if it’s the only one he can make, he’s still making it. 

He’s sure they’re all talking about him in the cafeteria. He must be the only thing anyone in Division 3 talks about. The crazy, crippled god in a cage. A prisoner inside his own body, inside a prison built of threats and other people’s love. They must wonder what’s going to happen to him, because it's too dangerous to let him live but it’s too dangerous to let him die. 

He needs to know the answer to that question himself. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s just this, forever. Farouk must be loving all of this so much. He must be bathing himself in David’s misery, gorging on it, fat as a tick. 

David hopes he chokes on it. 

He puts both his middle fingers up and points them at the ceiling, then points them at the window. Fuck Farouk and fuck the world. Fuck all of it. Fuck everyone and everything. 

“My sentiments exactly.”

David’s so startled he nearly slides out of his chair. He looks over and sees to his astonishment that Oliver is awake and trying to sit up. 

Holy shit, Oliver is awake. He has to get the others. 

“No, no,” Oliver says, moving slowly into a sit. “I don’t want any fuss. My head hurts enough as it is.”

David stands, hesitates, then gets over himself. He pulls his chair over and sits. “You’re awake,” he says, stupidity, but he’s stupid. “I mean— How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been psychically tortured.”

Ouch. David deserved that. 

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Oliver says, waving his hand before letting it fall limply back onto the bed. “You’ve been doing enough of that.”

“You’ve been— You’ve been listening?” It shouldn’t make any difference, the whole world has been listening to him talk and he’s got three people listening in on his thoughts at all times.

Four people, apparently. 

“You’ve been thinking extremely loudly,” Oliver says. “And there’s three of you. I’m amazed I didn’t notice them before. But your mind was much noisier then.”

“How— How long have you been awake?”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Oliver says. “I was resting outside of my body. Like you did. Waiting for it to heal.”

That really is a good idea. David’s going to have to remember to do it, if he gets badly hurt in the future. Assuming he ever gets this crown off his head. 

“Could you— Could you see me? When I was—“ Could he have seen Oliver?

“I heard your thoughts,” Oliver says. “The crown traps you inside your mind. You couldn’t see me.”

David’s going to start forgetting to say things out loud, if he’s surrounded by people who are always hearing his thoughts. He used to do the same thing to everyone else, but he tried not to be rude about it. People have rarely reacted well when he answers back their thoughts, whether they were actually their thoughts or not. 

“Okay,” David says, rubbing his face. Should he apologize? He should really apologize. “I’m—“

Oliver waves his hand again. “Forget all that.”

David prays for patience. Why won’t anyone let him be sorry about hurting them? 

Oliver deigns not to answer that unsaid question. Probably because he’s had to listen to everyone else telling David the same answer over and over again, as if repetition will force it to make sense to him. 

When David refocuses his attention, he sees that Oliver’s has also drifted elsewhere. More specifically, to the bed beside his. 

Melanie. 

“She’s not here,” Oliver says, sadly. “Her mind. It’s not in her body. I looked, but—“ He closes his eyes with grief.

“Oliver,” David says, at a loss. 

“He did this. Your monster. I felt him tear her out of herself. I couldn’t stop him.”

“It’s not your fault,” David says, because if anyone knows it’s not Oliver’s fault it’s him.

In the back of his mind, Divad clears his throat. 

“Do you mind?” David asks, tersely. “Sorry, not— That was—“

“Yes, I heard.”

That’s— Actually, he’s glad Oliver can hear his thoughts, if it means he can hear his alters. It makes David feel a little bit less crazy when other people can hear the same voices he can. Even if they’re just him talking to himself. 

David wants to help, if there’s any way he can. Not that he’s good for much of anything in his current condition. Actually, he’s completely useless. But—

“What did he do with her?” David asks. “Did he put her somewhere, or—“

God, he hopes Farouk didn’t just leave her stranded outside of her body. Melanie is only human, she doesn’t have any mental abilities that could help her get back to herself. Whatever happened to her, she must be stuck, helpless. David knows what that’s like, too. 

“I don’t know,” Oliver says, distantly. “But I believe she’s somewhere on the astral plane.”

“But that’s— That’s good, right? I mean, I found you there.”

“I found you,” Oliver corrects. “You were lost in the vast subconscious. Your mind burned bright, impossible to miss. If Melanie is there, she’s only one among billions.”

Well, that’s—

“I’m sorry,” David says, genuinely. It was petty and cruel to do that to Melanie, which is of course why Farouk did it. He lives for the chance to be petty and cruel. 

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Oliver says in return. “I’m glad your friends were able to save her. And your friend. Lenny, I believe?”

David stares at him. “What?”

“Ah, my mistake,” Oliver says. “They didn’t want to tell you. Forget I said anything.”

Forget he— “Amy’s alive?!” His friends saved her? Why didn’t they tell him?!

“I’ve already said too much,” Oliver answers. “Oh dear. And now they’re here.”

Ten seconds later, the door to the lab bursts open and everyone hurries in. “Oliver, you’re awake,” Cary cries. 

“Amy’s alive?” David cries back, standing up to face them. 

Syd, Kerry, and Cary all wince. Ptonomy’s Vermillion and Clark do not. 

Those are not good news faces. Amy being alive should be good news. Why is it not good news?

“David, stay calm,” Divad says, suddenly visible again. 

“You telling me to stay calm is exactly the sort of thing that makes me a lot less calm,” David tells him. “Wait, you knew about this? And you didn’t tell me?” His own mind knew Amy is alive but it wouldn’t tell him? How is this his life? “What happened to Amy?”

“I told you we should have told him,” says Dvd, also visible. 

David ignores him. He rounds back to his friends, if he can call them that for hiding Amy from him. He doesn’t ask again, just looks at them, exasperated. 

They all look at each other, like no one wants to be the one to have to tell him. God, how bad is it? 

“Amy was dead,” David says, trying to make sense of whatever is happening. “Farouk— He killed her. I saw— I felt her die. I heard her—“ He searched Lenny’s mind and saw fragments of Amy, memories, but he couldn’t find her thoughts. He couldn’t find her. 

“David.”

The voice is electronic, familiar, coming out of Ptonomy’s Vermillion. David stares at the android. 

“David, it’s me. Amy. I’m alive, I’m— I think I’m alive. I’m in the mainframe.”

Amy’s in the mainframe? With Ptonomy? They’re both in the mainframe? But how did they even—

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. 

He wants to rush forward and hold her. He wants to stumble back until he’s as far away as he can get. He doesn’t do either but puts his hand over his mouth, horrified and relieved and horrified again. 

Farouk didn’t kill her. He didn’t kill Amy. No, of course he didn’t, he’s too petty and cruel to just kill her. He must have ripped her out of her body just like he did to Melanie, but then shoved her back inside, hiding her somewhere so deep David couldn’t find her. She was trapped inside her own body. For days and days. While he ran around like the idiot he is trying to kill his fucking monster and making everything worse. She must have been so scared and hurt, she must have pounded on the walls of her mental coffin and screamed and screamed for him to save her and he was right there but he—

“David,” Amy’s voice soothes, though the Vermillion‘s face is expressionless. “It’s okay. I’m okay, now. I’m safe, Farouk can’t hurt me here, or Ptonomy or Lenny. We’re okay.”

The mainframe. David saw what happened to Ptonomy. He saw the Vermillion drag him away even as he was busy chasing after the hideous creature that burst out of Ptonomy and ripped him apart. He didn’t know what it meant, not until Ptonomy showed up in the cafeteria to help him. But that was how they did it. How they uploaded him. How they saved his mind, how they—

How they saved—

Lenny. Lenny was alive. She wasn’t— Lenny was alive, she saved his life, she— In the truck, after Division 3 captured her, she said she was going to fry if he didn’t save her. He was going to save her. That was part of the plan. Watch Farouk fry, turn him to dust if he didn’t, and then take Syd and Lenny and get as far away from everything as he possibly could. 

He does step back then, shaking his head, but he bumps into Oliver’s bed. “Please tell me you didn’t—“

He screwed up the plan. He couldn’t let Syd go even though she shot him. He tried to make her come back, to love him again, but he couldn’t. And then he screwed up by not getting away, and then Lenny—

“No,” Divad says, stepping closer. “David, that’s not what happened.”

“They didn’t kill her?” David asks him, angrily. He’s angry at them, because Lenny didn’t do anything to deserve that, but he’s angrier at himself. He promised he would keep her safe, that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. “They didn’t execute her?”

After everything she went through, everything Farouk did to her. She got through all of that and she saved his life twice and how did he repay her? He lost his mind and fucked up and let her die. 

The Vermillion goes silent, and then—

“Yeah, they killed me.” It’s Lenny’s voice now, coming out of the Vermillion. “Look, I’m not happy about it either. It’s bullshit. But they did it to save me and Amy. We’re okay, man, I promise.”

God, it’s disorienting. Three people in one body. Maybe this is what it’s like when he and his alters are sharing. 

“You’re okay?” David asks, inching back from a very, very steep cliff. 

“We’re okay,” Amy says. The Vermillion raises its arms, stiff and straight like a zombie, but David would know what she’s trying to do no matter what body or android or crazy thing she was in. 

She’s opening her arms for him to hug her. Like she always does. Because she’s alive. She’s alive and she has arms so she wants to hug him. 

He rushes forward and hugs her so tight. Her body is hard and unresponsive and it should be awkward but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. She’s alive and he can hug her. 

When he finally lets her go, he looks to his friends. “We can get her out, right?” he asks them, begs them. “We can get all of them out?”

“We hope so,” says Syd. “But right now the mainframe is the safest place for them. They’re safe. They’re alive. That’s what’s important right now.”

David nods, wipes his eyes. His legs feel like jelly. He has to sit down. He makes it back to his chair and leans forward, his head between his knees. 

“You okay?” Divad asks, crouching beside him. 

“Don’t—“ David warns. He doesn’t want Divad to take this away from him. It’s his. It’s awful and it hurts but it’s his. 

“I’m not taking anything,” Divad assures him. “I’m just asking.”

It’s not like Divad needs to ask. He can hear every thought in David’s head, even the ones he can’t hear himself. He said he knows what’s best for David, better than he does himself. Maybe it’s true. But David doesn’t want what’s best for himself. He wants what’s his. He wants to be himself, even if it’s awful and it hurts. 

His whole life has been pain. He can’t lose one without giving up the other. He almost lost Amy and Lenny and— He doesn’t want to lose anything else. 

He doesn’t. 

“I’m okay,” David says, breathing. He’s okay. Not great, but he’s okay. He’s alive. He’s trying to get better. Because David is still David. There are things he's lost that he'll never get back. But he's here and he's not alone. 

He’s not alone. He raises his head. 

“Thank you,” he says, to all of them. For saving Amy and Lenny. For keeping him alive. God, if he’d— If he’d killed himself, and Amy— God, he doesn’t know what would have been worse. If he’d killed himself and then they saved her after it was too late to save him. Or if he killed himself and then they had no reason to figure out she was still alive, and she ended up trapped inside herself until—

Okay, he definitely knows which one of those would have been worse. Oh god. 

He doesn’t want to die. But he might throw up and pass out. Oh god. 

“He’ll be all right,” Oliver says to the others. “He’s just had a bit of a shock.”

§

David has to lie down after that. He’s just— He needs to lie down. So he lies on his bed and watches as his friends mill around Oliver’s bed, as they fret over Oliver and hug him and do for him what they’ve been doing for David all this time.

They’ve been helping him. Saving him. Giving him their love to try and keep him alive. And they did. They kept him alive. They helped him so one day he’d be well enough to start to help himself. 

He feels like he’s been in a fever, his body straining to burn out the infection in his mind. And now the fever has broken. And he’s weak and tired and still nowhere near healthy, but—

He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t. And he doesn’t feel like he has to, not the way he did before. 

Nothing has changed about the situation he’s in. His mind is still— He knows he’s sick. He knows it’s going to take work to get anywhere near healthy, whatever healthy even means for him. Farouk is still listening in, waiting, planning his next move with all that infinite patience and even more infinite cruelty. The freight train is still bearing down the tracks, as fast as ever, and there’s still nothing he can do to stop it. 

Yet. There’s nothing he can do to stop it yet. Because—

Because he doesn’t want it. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want it. It’s not his. He never asked for it. He never wanted it. It’s not who he is and he’s not going to let it happen to him without fighting against it with everything he has. He’s not going to let Farouk turn him into a world-killer. He’s not. 

He’ll still kill himself, if he has to. If it comes to it. If there’s no other choice, if it’s between his life and saving the world. He will die and he won’t regret the choice. 

But he doesn’t have to make that choice now. It felt like he did, but that was the poison in his mind, telling him that. Farouk’s poison, the world’s poison, his own poison. He’s been swallowing poison for so long thinking it would help him, but all it did was make him so very, very sick. 

He’s sick. But he wants to get better. He wants to try. Even if he’ll never be normal, never be whole like everyone else. He wants to try. He wants to try. 

That’s his choice. His first true, genuine choice, made of his own free will, with his own mind and a clear head. It feels good to finally be able to make it.


	19. Day 5: So it turns out I’m a mutant and I’m crazy.

Once all the fuss dies down, Oliver, like David, is left alone to rest. David watches quietly as everyone goes back to their usual places and activities. Cary to his computers, Kerry to her exercises, Syd to her reading. It’s calming, knowing their routines, letting them happen around him. It makes him feel like he’s part of things, even when he isn’t doing anything at all. 

The Vermillion walks over to him. David sits up, not sure who’s currently in charge of it. 

“How are you feeling?” It’s Ptonomy. 

“Um. Better,” David says, and this time he truly means it. “Thank you. Again. For, um. Everything.” He rubs the back of his neck. Thanks hardly seem like enough, when Ptonomy was the one who rescued both Amy and Lenny, when he put them somewhere they’d be protected, when he did all that and saved David’s life, too. 

“I’m just glad you’re feeling better,” Ptonomy says, and he must be getting a finer grasp on piloting the Vermillion because he manages to use it to put a comforting hand on David’s shoulder. It’s close enough to actually being comforting for David to appreciate the gesture. 

“I was, um—“ David begins. “We haven’t had a chance to talk today.” He dreaded his next session with Ptonomy earlier, but now he feels the urgency of it. He wants to get better, he needs to get better. But he can’t do it on his own. He needs help, a lot of help, and he doesn’t want to waste any more time than he already has. “Maybe we could—“

“David,” Ptonomy says, in the calm tone he uses when he wants David to be calm. “You’ve just had a shock. It helped you a lot, but it was still a shock. All you need to do today is rest. Be with your friends, your family. Just be with us. We’ll start the hard work tomorrow.”

“Isn’t this already the hard work?”

“Keeping you alive was hard work for us. Getting better will be hard work for you.”

That’s rather more ominous than David would have liked to hear, but Ptonomy isn’t one for sugar-coating. Maybe resting is a good idea. He really does need a rest. 

“Come sit with us,” Ptonomy says, gesturing to the table. “You haven’t had lunch?”

David shakes his head. He’d been too busy sulking, and then Oliver— He follows Ptonomy to the table, sits down heavily, and opens the covered plate they brought back for him. It’s a bowl, still warm, filled with rice and vegetables and meat and some kind of sauce. It’s comfort food and it’s just what he needs. He takes a bite and the savory-umami of it hits his tongue just right. 

The cafeteria staff really do work wonders. He’ll have to thank them, too. Until now he’s barely had anything they serve except waffles. And after this morning, he needs a break from waffles. 

He definitely needs a rest. Definitely. 

He’s halfway through the bowl before he realizes that none of the others have come to join them. Then he realizes what Ptonomy meant by “us.”

Right. Three people in one body. Which makes six of them sitting at the table, and they still have plenty of available chairs. 

David never thought that his life was normal, but it’s definitely gotten very strange. 

“So, um. How does this—“

“We’re all listening,” Ptonomy says. “I’m sorry this can’t be more private, but the mainframe isn’t designed for privacy. Just talk to whoever you want to talk to.”

It’s surprisingly similar to David’s own situation. Right down to the lack of privacy. Right, okay. 

“Amy?” he prompts. 

“Hey,” Amy says. 

She sounds like she’s smiling. It makes him want to smile back. He tries to, anyway, but his mouth won’t quite do what he wants. Yeah, okay, this was all a hell of a shock. He breathes, breathes. Amy’s okay. She’s alive. She’s not trapped anymore and Farouk can’t hurt her anymore.

She doesn’t have a body. Which is bad. But David is surrounded by minds without bodies, and too many minds in one body, and minds that can detach from bodies. The whole mind-body problem is— he’s not sure if it’s more complicated than anyone imagined or completely irrelevant. 

At least he remembers something from his intro to philosophy class. 

“So, um.” God, why is this so awkward? It’s Amy, she’s his sister. There shouldn’t be anything for them to be awkward about. “So it turns out I’m a mutant and I’m crazy.”

Oh yeah, there’s that. 

“Oh, David,” she says. She probably means it as sympathetic but it feels like pity, and it rubs him wrong. 

“It’s okay,” he insists, all evidence blindingly to the contrary. God knows how much of his mental breakdown she’s seen. Probably all of it, like everyone else. “I’m getting help. It’s all— It’s under control.”

“You’re not crazy,” Amy insists. “You’re sick.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said.” God, why is he getting upset at her? He should be blissfully happy that she’s alive. He shoves more food into his mouth so he doesn’t shove his whole foot into it instead. 

Divad appears in one of the empty chairs. It’s still empty even with him in it. “Cortisol’s getting kinda high.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” David says back. 

“I’m here if you need me.”

David really wishes he could say he doesn’t. But he does. “Okay, fine,” he relents. 

Divad does whatever it is he does, and David stops feeling like he has to squeeze his eyes shut and run into things. It’s better, even if he hates that it’s better. 

His head clears. He stalls by eating more of his food, and thinks about why he’s upset, now that he’s less upset. 

A memory comes back to him, one he wishes he could forget. It’s Amy laughing at him in Farouk’s fake mansion. She wasn’t real. It wasn’t her. It was Farouk messing with him, like always. But Farouk lived in his head and knows everything about him, even things David has tried to hide from himself. He always knows exactly which of David’s buttons to push. And he pushed this one hard. 

It’s not the first time. It’s only been weeks for him since Farouk’s fake Clockworks fantasy. Farouk made Amy cruel to him there, too. The worst part is that David knows all of that was meant to mess with him. He knows that it was meant to do exactly what it’s doing now, which is to stop David from simply being happy that his sister is alive. He knows all of that but he still can’t stop himself from being upset and angry and hurt. 

Because Farouk always hurts him with the truth. He takes the truth and stabs David in the gut with it and slowly twists the knife, staring deep into his eyes the whole time so he doesn’t miss a moment of David’s pain. 

“David?” Amy calls, worried and confused. 

“Sorry,” David says, rubbing his face. He hates this. He hates giving that shit beetle the satisfaction of being even a tiny bit right. “You’re right. I’m— I’m sick.”

He’s crazy. 

He just wants to be happy that she’s alive. That’s all he wants. So he’s just going to be happy that she’s alive. 

He tries to smile again. It still comes out wrong. He shoves the bowl away in frustration and it crashes on the floor.

“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry.” He kneels on the floor and starts cleaning it up. He glares at Divad. “You said you were helping.”

“I’m trying to give you space so you can get better,” Divad returns. “I’m trying not to ‘erase’ you.”

David doesn’t need this right now. What he needs is to get better. What he needs is to be not sick anymore, so he can be not crazy. 

Except—

Except he’s always going to think he’s three people. There’s no cure, no treatment. Even if he gets better, he’ll still be sick. He’ll still be crazy. 

Kerry kneels down in front of him and takes the broken pieces of the bowl out of his unmoving hands. She looks worried again. He’s tired of people worrying over him. He just wants to be better. 

He just wants to be better.

“Hey,” says Lenny. 

David opens his eyes, even though he hadn’t realized he’d closed them. The Vermillion is sitting in front of him now, cross-legged, like Lenny sometimes sat. 

Only Lenny could make a Vermillion casually slump. 

“Fuck that bowl, am I right?”

David unfreezes enough to nod his head. 

“Fuck that food too, I bet it was gross. They serve you rotten food here, too?”

Sometimes the meat in Clockworks wasn’t the freshest. It was usually passable and overseasoned to make it palatable, but sometimes David got food poisoning. That’s why he stuck to cherry pie. Cherry pie was always safe. Just crust and cherries. 

“No,” David says, because the cafeteria staff here wouldn’t do that to him, not with their carrot suns and smiling radishes. “It was really good.”

He guesses she can’t try it herself, now that she’s dead. Or not-dead. Just like Ptonomy. Just like Amy. 

Okay. Okay. He has definitely had a shock. Divad’s keeping his head clear enough to see that. He’s keeping away the panic. But there’s only so much he can do without making David upset about losing his feelings entirely. 

David’s so fucked in the head that even his entire separate identity with mutant emotional regulation can’t keep him from being a disaster. 

“You wanna stay down here?” Lenny asks. “The floor’s better than chairs anyway. Fuck chairs.”

David manages something approximating a strained laugh. “Fuck chairs,” he agrees. 

“What did chairs ever do for anyone? You know what I miss? Beanbags. The really huge ones, you know? You’d sit in em and just sink.”

David remembers those. There were some in the common area until someone tore them open and spilled all the tiny foam balls all over the floor. They weren’t replaced.

His knees hurt. How long has he been kneeling? He sits back, brings up his knees and rests his head against them. 

Breathe, breathe. Keep breathing. 

This is bad. He knows it’s bad. He focuses on the Vermillion. On Lenny. She’s helping him through, the way she used to. Bringing him back again. He’s really glad she’s alive. Even if they had to kill her to—

“Did it—“ David tries, meeting her eyes. The Vermillion’s eyes. “Did it hurt?”

A pause, and then: “Nah, I didn’t even know what happened until it was over. You should see this mainframe place, it’s the wildest shit ever. No drugs, but it’s like living in a kaleidoscope. I’m tripping out.”

She sounds like she’s telling him the truth. He doesn’t think she would lie to him. Lenny’s never been one for sugar-coating either, despite her sweet tooth. She was the only one he trusted for a long time. That’s probably why Farouk killed her, so he could use that trust against David. And even that wasn’t enough, so he changed David’s mind until Benny was Lenny, too, and Benny was the person David trusted to help him destroy himself.

It worked. All that trust, and then when Syd was in danger, despite his misgivings he gave himself up. Gave over control. Farouk toyed with him for a while, let him think Lenny was helping him. Showed him who he could have been, in another life. Someone focused and stable and fully in control of himself and everything around him. 

Farouk gave him the white room. He was riding David, the bridle loose enough to be ignored, when he and Syd finally— 

And then the bridle pulled back hard, and then David was just a passenger, forced to watch as his body committed a massacre. 

Is that who he’s supposed to be? Is that him, focused and stable and in control? Not the massacre, he hopes, but everything else? 

He doesn’t like that him. In the moment it was exhilarating, freeing, but that freedom was the thinnest of illusions. And he hurt people. He hurt Melanie and he hurt Syd. Farouk tricked him from the start: Syd wasn’t even in danger at all. And because of him, Walter got away and Kerry got shot. 

David doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He doesn’t want to be the cause of so much pain, even if most of it is his own. He just wants to be better. He doesn’t want to die so he has to get better. 

It’s just all so much. All of it. It’s all so much and he has so far to go, and even if he makes it he’ll still never be—

“What’s— What’s going to happen to me?” He asks. He doesn’t know who he’s asking. Anyone. 

Ptonomy takes control back, and the Vermillion’s posture changes. “You don’t have to worry about that now. We’re just taking this one step at a time.”

“But I’ll never be—“ How can he get better if he’ll never get better?

“Never be what? Normal?”

David nods. 

“You don’t have to be. You just have to be yourself. I’ve helped a lot of people like you. Your situation is complicated but that doesn’t mean you can’t be stable, happy, in the right environment, with the right support. It doesn’t mean you can’t give back. That’s what Oliver’s dream was about. A place for complicated people to get better and get the chance to give something back.”

“Sounds nice,” David says, because it does. It was nice in Summerland, with all that green. It was noisy, with so many powerful minds so close together, thinking loud thoughts, but it was peaceful, too. He wishes he could go back there, but it’s gone. He helped kill it by urging everyone to work with Division 3 to stop Farouk. And besides that, Melanie is gone. Oliver is grieving. There’s no one to bear the burden of that dream anymore. 

“It was,” Ptonomy agrees. He stands up and holds out the Vermillion’s hand. David takes it and lets the android pull him up. He wobbles and sits down again, but at least this time he’s in a chair. 

“I hope this is worth it,” David says, quietly but not to himself. 

“You have always been worth the trouble, David. Everyone is. That’s why we found you and tried to help you. Yes, because of your powers. But also because that’s what we do. What we used to do. Maybe you’re right. This place hasn’t been what we needed.”

David looks at him. 

“Oliver and Melanie found us, too,” Ptonomy explains. “They found me and Cary and Kerry, and Rudy, and Syd, and so many others. We’re complicated people, too, all of us. Division 3 was never designed to support us. It gave us the opportunity to give back on a scale we never imagined, but we paid the price for that. So your question should really be: what will happen to all of us?”

David’s heart cracks. “But I’ll never— They’ll never let me leave.”

It’s just like Clockworks. They’ll never let him leave. Maybe Farouk will take him away but Division 3 will never let him leave. 

“Do you really think that we would leave you behind?” Ptonomy asks. “Whatever happens in the future, we’ll face it together. That’s what we always did at Summerland. That’s what we forgot to do here.”

David wants to believe that. He wants to believe he has a future that doesn’t end in death and pain. He wants to believe he can be stable and happy. It’s just all so far away. It’s all so much and he has so far to go. 

In the desert, Syd said that every story ends the same. He didn’t believe her then, but he was wrong. He doesn’t know what to believe now. He doesn’t see a happy ending for himself. And if his fate is tied to theirs, he can’t see a happy ending for them either. 

He has every reason to just give up. That’s still the cold, hard truth. But he isn’t ready to do that. He still needs to try, even if he’s doomed to fail. There’s something stubborn in him that’s never given up, even as he pulled the cord tight around his neck and stepped off a chair. Even as he sat by the sea in his dream and readied himself to die.

“I guess— You weren’t kidding about this being hard work,” David says, as lightly as he can. 

“That’s why we’re taking this one step at a time,” Ptonomy agrees. “Nice and easy, okay? Why don’t you go lie back down? If you’re feeling up to it later we can play a game. What do you like? Cards? Scrabble? Monopoly?”

“Not Monopoly,” David pleads. That game is a form of torture that even Farouk couldn’t be petty and cruel enough to invent. But then he is hundreds of years old. Maybe he did invent it. 

“Not Monopoly,” Ptonomy says, warmly. “Do you want to talk about anything else? To Lenny or Amy?”

David feels bad about turning them away, but he can’t. He doesn’t have it in him to talk to anyone, not even his sister and his best friend after they just—

He can’t. It’s too much. He’s had a shock and he needs to rest. Just rest.

§

After David is tucked back into bed, Ptonomy goes over to Cary.

“So what do you think?” he asks. 

“What does the Admiral think?” Cary replies. 

“He thinks that we should do whatever will keep David stable. He doesn’t want us to leave. Division 3 needs people like us.”

“We never should have come here in the first place.”

“I know it was never your choice,” Ptonomy allows. “You came because we came. And we came because of David. We did what we came here to do. Now we need to do something else.”

“You know he’s right,” Cary says, quietly even though David is asleep. “Division 3 will never trust him to be stable. They’ll never let him leave.”

“I’m the one in charge of David’s recovery,” Ptonomy says, firmly. 

“Do you really think that matters?”

Ptonomy reminds himself to be patient. “This place isn’t what it was a year ago. We changed it. All of us worked hard to change it. We have to give it a chance to be better, just like we’re giving David a chance.”

Cary crosses his arms grumpily. “David actually deserves a chance.”

“If we all got what we deserved, the world would be an empty place. And that’s the very future we’re trying to avoid.”

Cary relents, but he’s not done. “So what’s next? What’s our ‘something else’?”

“I don’t know yet,” Ptonomy admits. “You were right, it all depends on David.”

“At least he doesn’t want to kill himself anymore.” Cary frowns at whatever dark moment he’s remembering. There are plenty to choose from. 

“That’s a lot,” Ptonomy says, and means it. “I think he’ll get there, wherever he needs to be.”

“But can he get there fast enough?”

“This isn’t a race. It’s therapy. I think Farouk was telling Syd the truth before. He needs David to get better just as much as we do.”

“So he can break him again.”

“That’s what he wants to do, but we’re not gonna let that happen. David’s not facing this alone.”

Cary nods. 

“We’re already moving David as fast as he can take,” Ptonomy cautions. “The last thing we need is to do Farouk’s work for him. Finding out about Amy and Lenny might have shocked him out of suicide but it’s set him back, too. He’s extremely delicate.”

“I know,” Cary sighs. “It wasn’t how we wanted to tell him. But there was never going to be an easy way to tell him.”

“I suppose Oliver did us a favor, spilling the beans.”

Oliver’s sleeping too, or at least his eyes are closed. It’s possible that he’s gone to look for Melanie again. Ptonomy hopes he doesn’t wander far. Oliver and wandering are a bad combination. 

“We have to watch out for him, too,” Cary says, sadly, and then he creases with grief. “I can’t believe Melanie’s gone.”

“She’s lost, not gone.”

“What’s the difference, if we can’t find her?”

“Maybe none. But there’s three minds in here with no bodies, and only one of us is a mutant. Melanie’s strong. If she’s still out there, she’ll survive. We just have to find her.”

Cary quirks a smile. “You sound like Melanie. Which is really quite amusing when you couldn’t stand the way she waited for Oliver.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve all been through a lot of changes,” Ptonomy admits. “I used to think sacrifices were necessary to win the war. Now I have a different perspective. Not just because I died. I’ve been watching the whole world from here. The war isn’t what I thought it was.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”


	20. Day 5: Three little brothers?

While David is asleep, Divad gently pulls him out of their body and steps in. He feels bad about doing this without David’s permission, and when David is feeling better they’ll talk about it, but right now he needs to take the opportunity to check in with David’s friends. 

David will rest better outside of their body anyway. Divad gives him an extra push down to make his sleep deep and dreamless. Divad can feel the weight of the burdens their body carries. It’s a lot, and Divad wishes it was a burden they could share. But right now David needs to be in it for both body and mind to heal together, and he needs to be in it to stay with his friends so they can keep him alive. 

They need to figure out how to help David. Divad has been holding back, trying to give David space to heal, trying not to make him feel 'erased'. But it’s difficult. It's always been difficult when Divad can't help him, and now that Farouk is gone it's difficult not to do everything he possibly can. But he can't. 

He could help David so much more, but David doesn't know him. David doesn't trust him. Farouk took all of that away, and that's why Divad and Dvd both need to trust David's friends to help him. That's why they all need to work together.

Kerry, Cary, Syd, and the Vermillion are sitting around the table playing cards. Divad’s not sure who’s in charge of the Vermillion’s hand. Maybe all three of them at once: Ptonomy, Amy, and Lenny. 

David’s right, their lives have become incredibly strange. 

“David?” Syd says, seeing his approach. 

“Divad,” Divad says, waving off their concern. He sits down with them. “We have a lot to talk about. I left David sleeping on the bed.”

They all look over to the bed, but of course they don’t see David curled up there, or Dvd sitting in the chair beside him, guarding him. It's hard for Dvd, too, letting David suffer. Despite everything Farouk did to interfere, Dvd at least has been able to protect them. Now all he can do is sit and watch. That's all Divad could do for years, and for all their arguments he'd never wished that on Dvd.

It's hard to figure out where to start. But then he looks at the Vermillion and he knows.

"Amy," Divad says. "Are you there?"

A pause, then: "Yes. Um. Divad?"

She asks cautiously, of course. She doesn't know him either, but that wasn't because of Farouk. When the three of them shared, or when David went away, Divad and Dvd would pretend they were David. It was easier that way. It was David's life that needed to be protected, his relationships, his school work. The whole normal, unaware world kept going on its business around them, oblivious to the horrors happening inside of their body all the time. 

"Yes," Divad says. "I'm sorry I never introduced myself before. Dvd is, too."

"Ptonomy showed me, um-- You're David's alters?"

"Yes. We grew up with you. We've been here all along. David knew about us until Farouk made him forget. We didn't tell you, because-- We had to keep David safe."

Maybe they should have tried to tell Amy. Maybe she could have helped them. But they didn't dare to try. Farouk had already done so much to make everyone believe that David was crazy. No one would have believed them and it would have only made things worse.

Divad wishes he could see Amy's face. She had such an expressive face. Sometimes when he was the one in their body, she would hug him and she made everything feel okay for a little while.

As hard as Amy's death has been for David, it's been hard for him and Dvd, too. She's their sister, even though she didn't know about them. She loved them, even though she thought she was only loving David. They had to protect David, but she protected them, as much as she could.

"Oh," Amy says. "Well, um. It's good to finally meet you." She pauses. "So I guess I should think of the three of you as triplets? Three little brothers?"

She's trying so hard for them, for David. Even though her voice quivers when she talks, her uncertainty audible despite the electronic filter.

"Yeah, I guess so," Divad says, surprised by the idea. He didn't-- David made them to help him survive. They're separate from him, but they're still part of him. They've helped him live his life, they haven't lived their own. But from the outside, he supposes that's what they are. Three brothers in one body.

Brothers. He likes that. He hopes they can be that, if David can accept them again.

"Amy," Divad says, because they need to talk about this. "David-- He got upset, seeing you again. I want you to know why."

If Amy still had her body, she would probably be biting her lip and looking at him with wide, anxious eyes. But the Vermillion is impassive. She's still just a passenger inside it, still struggling to adapt to her strange new existence.

"After you died," Divad continues. "Farouk tortured David with a vision of you laughing at him. He told David you thought he was a joke. That you-- That you put him in Clockworks just to hurt him."

"Oh god," Amy says, her voice horrified.

"David knows it wasn't true, but-- There's enough truth in it."

"I never--" Amy says, upset. "I just didn't want him to hurt himself again. I didn't know what else to do to help him."

"I know," Divad soothes. "When you put us there, I thought it was the best decision, too. Farouk stopped David from hearing us, he took David away from us so we couldn't protect him anymore. Not the way we needed to. We couldn't stop him from--" He stops, takes a breath. "We couldn't stop him either. Clockworks could. But David-- It was hard for him, in there. It was really, really hard. That place hurt him. It made him worse. He resents you for doing that to him."

Amy cries in tight, quiet gasps through the Vermillion's speaker. Divad wishes he could hold her, comfort her the way she used to comfort them. He hopes Ptonomy and Lenny can touch her in the mainframe, the way he and Dvd can touch David when they're all outside their body.

"David wants to be--" Divad says, trying to make this easier for her. "He wants to be happy. He wants to put everything behind him. But he can't, not yet. He's angry and he's upset that he's angry, he blames you and he blames himself. We'll try to help him through it but--"

"Should I--" Amy sniffs. "Should I stay away from him?"

"No, no," Divad says. "He needs you. He loves you so much. He just-- It's going to be hard for him, for a while. It's going to be hard for you. Just be patient with him. Let him work through it. Help him when he's ready."

"I can do that," Amy says, and it sounds like she's trying to smile for him, the way she always tried to smile for David when things were hard. She always tried to help him be happy when he couldn't be happy on his own. "Thank you for-- For telling me."

The Vermillion goes quiet, and then someone else takes over. 

"Divad," Ptonomy says. "What else did Farouk do to David? We know that Future Syd told him to work with Farouk to find his body. We don't know what happened when they met."

Divad thinks back. "Farouk was-- Aggressive. He was constantly trying to provoke David. He kept talking about how they were both gods, how David had to leave the kiddie table. Make the rules and take from the world what he deserved. Farouk told him to remove his mask, show his face and be beautiful." Just thinking about it gives Divad the creeps, and his words have a similar effect on the others.

"He wants David to be like him," Syd says. "He wants to turn him into some kind of violent god. He made me think he already was one."

"David didn't want any of it," Divad insists. "He pushed back as hard as he could. But--" This part is-- "In the desert. When he broke. He lost himself and-- and Farouk got his claws into him. David tried to take what he thought he deserved. And we didn't help. I was angry at David, and Dvd was angry at Syd, and-- I tried to keep everyone under control, to make David see that he was sick. But he couldn't hear me, even without Farouk in the way. He couldn't see what he was doing until it was too late."

"And does he still think that?" Ptonomy asks. "That he's a god?"

"David doesn't even think he's a third of a person," Divad says, their chest squeezing with the pain of that. "He's ashamed of all of it, ashamed of what he is, ashamed of being sick. Amy and Lenny being alive reminded him of what he'd be giving up if he killed himself. But he still doesn't think that he deserves to live."

"So what can we do to help him?" Cary asks. 

"I don't know," Divad says, though it's so hard to admit. He's not worth a third of a person either, with how badly he's failed to protect David. "There's always been this-- Even before Dvd and I were made, David was already sick. Farouk was alone with him in his head for years, draining him, torturing him even when he was a baby."

Divad stops, unable to continue, and the table stays silent. 

Cary is the first to speak. "Farouk was his world. Very young children, they look at the world and all they can do is accept it. When the world is healthy, they learn to be healthy in it. But that's not what David experienced. The things he suffered at that tender age, it's-- It's very common, with child abuse or a hostile environment. We believe it's our fault. We make it part of ourselves. The suffering becomes a punishment, and the worse the punishment, the more we must deserve it."

Kerry puts her hand in Cary's and holds his tight.

"That's why he can't forgive himself?" Syd asks. "Because he thinks he deserves whatever Farouk does to him?"

"I think it is," Cary says.

"He said he was garbage," Ptonomy says. "That's how he thinks of himself. He said he deserves to be thrown away."

"This just keeps getting worse," Syd says, tightly. 

"You know what Farouk did to him," Cary says, addressing Divad. "You know what he's been made to forget."

"Most of it," Divad says. "According to Syd, he made us forget things too, but we can't remember that we forgot. Just like David. It's-- It makes things incredibly hard for him, not remembering, not knowing his own past. But if he remembered it would be--" He shakes their head. "He needs us to remember for him."

"Do you have any way to share your memories?" Cary asks. "Safe ones."

"There aren't a lot of safe ones. Everything's-- When Farouk left us alone, it was because David was too broken to hurt anymore. He'd let us help David until he was better, or he'd wipe it all away. Then he'd start again. I can't let him re-experience any of that. A lot of it-- Farouk didn't take all his memories away. David just couldn't live with some of them, so he forgot."

"Traumatic memory loss," Ptonomy says. "It's very common. If the memories still exist, they could be recovered. But you're right, it would be more than he can take, especially right now."

"So what can we do now?" Syd asks.

"Even with Farouk out of his head, David is still trapped deep in his trauma," Ptonomy says. "He's still a victim. We need to help him learn how to be a survivor." He looks at Divad. "I think you're still victims, too."

Divad startles. "Excuse me?"

"You and Dvd. You were tortured right along with David. It might be worse for you in some ways because you remember so much of it. All three of you need therapy. And I think it would be good for David to share his with you. One of the most powerful ways to help a victim is to show them they're not alone. That it wasn't just them. David feels like he deserves what happened, but he doesn't feel like anyone else does. If he can see himself in you, maybe he can start to move past that."

"That's--" Divad's more than skeptical. "You know I'm not actually another person, right? I'm part of David."

"You think independently of him. You have your own personality, your own opinions, your own life experience. You and Dvd are both as much people as I am, as Lenny and Amy are."

It's hard to argue against that. "Even if that's true, how would that even work? We can't all share our body at once. Well, we could, but it'd be too upsetting for David." Farouk really did a number on him with his possession.

"Oliver will help us," Ptonomy says, like it's as simple as that. "He can hear all three of you, right?"

"You're in the mainframe," Divad points out. "Aren't you protected from telepaths?"

"They can't read us, but that doesn't mean we can't listen. Oliver can relay your thoughts into the Vermillion. And I'll be able to hear David's thoughts. That might be easier for him."

"Or make him run screaming," Divad mutters. He's not thrilled with being roped into David's therapy, even if it makes sense and he could probably use some himself. "Dvd's not going to like it."

Dvd looks up from staring intensely at David while he sleeps. "What am I not going to like?"

"We're doing group therapy with David to help him get better," Divad tells him.

"Fuck no," Dvd says, standing up with alarm.

"He needs us," Divad says, because that's the one thing that always gets through to Dvd.

"I'm not letting that thing anywhere near my head," Dvd declares, pointing at the Vermillion. "He's the one who talked me into this-- this--" He makes a wordless noise of frustration and spreads his hands at David's sleeping form.

"David needs to know he's not alone," Divad says. "We're the only ones who know what he's been through. We went through it with him."

"Not a chance," Dvd says, teeth bared. "I watched for decades as shrinks fucked with David's head and made him worse. They're the ones who made him crazy."

"He's sick, not crazy," Divad says.

"Like there's any difference to _them_ ," Dvd says back. "If you ask me -- and I know you won't -- the only thing David needs is for everyone to leave him alone."

"If you ask me, you're scared," Divad says, and smirks as Dvd riles.

"I'm not scared of anything," Dvd says, and it's a good thing Divad's keeping David deeply asleep because Dvd's loud enough to have woken him up.

"Chicken," Divad taunts. He makes clucking sounds and Dvd flushes red. 

"They really are like brothers," Syd says, in wonder, even though she can only hear Divad's half of the conversation.

"Dvd, Divad," Ptonomy says, like a firm parent. "Please. This might be the only way to save David's life."

Divad and Dvd both fall silent. Dvd walks over. "Tell them I'm only doing it for David, and that I'm going to hate every last second of it."

"Dvd will do it," Divad says, and Dvd glares at him.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "You know, this might be exactly what you two need. Not just because of your trauma. David lost all his memories of you. You're still basically strangers to him. That must be extremely hard, when you have a lifetime of memories with him."

Dvd goes very still.

"Yes," Divad admits. David doesn't know them, doesn't trust them. After everything they shared and endured together, David treats them like strangers and pushes them away and denies their help as much as he possibly can. Every minute of that hurts.

"Even if you won't share your memories of the past, it will help you reconnect to share what you can," Ptonomy says. "What you had might be gone, but this is your chance to build something new together. Like David's foundation. The three of you have the rest of your lives together, if you do it right. If you make it strong."

Divad can't-- He can barely dare to hope for that much. It's been so long since Farouk got between them, since he made David forget them. It's been—

Dvd walks back to his chair and sits back down. He angrily wipes his eyes and goes back to staring at David like he can somehow will him better.

"Yeah," Divad says, quietly. "We'll start tomorrow?"

"If David's feeling strong enough," Ptonomy agrees. "I know all of this must seem... insurmountable. David’s been very sick for a very long time. And Farouk's waiting for him to get better so he can start all over again, just like he always did. But things are different now. David has all of us giving him the support and protection he needs so he can be healthy and safe the way he always should have been. And so do you, and Dvd."

Divad doesn't-- He doesn't understand. He and Dvd have spent their lives hiding their existence from the world because it was the only way to keep David safe. But these people, David's friends, they're just-- accepting them? Trying to help them? They're just alters, stress responses, they're not--

They're not even people. That's what David thinks of himself, that he's not even a person. Not even a third of a person. He's garbage unworthy of love or kindness, deserving only of Farouk's cruelty. Divad had his own part in feeding that delusion and he bears the guilt for that. But maybe all three of them have been sharing it together, like they shared so many things before they lost everything.

Brothers, Amy called them. Her three little brothers. They should have been, but they didn't let themselves. They were too afraid to let her see them. Divad has so many regrets, and now he adds one more.

He remembers what Amy said to them, when she said goodbye to David in the car outside of Clockworks. When David said his life wasn't supposed to be like this, she said she knew, but it was.

Divad and Dvd would never have existed if not for Farouk. They would both gladly stop existing if it meant David could have grown up safe and healthy and happy. They aren't supposed to exist. They're just here to protect David, and they couldn't even do that.

None of their lives were supposed to be like this, but they are. And as terrible as that shared life has been, maybe Ptonomy is right. Maybe things will be different now, because the three of them aren't alone anymore. 

Maybe these aren't just David's friends. Maybe they're Divad's friends, and Dvd's friends, too. Maybe Divad and Dvd aren't just fragments of David. Maybe they're three brothers, with a sister named Amy who loves them.

Maybe David can get better. Maybe they all can.

"Okay," Divad says. "Tomorrow. I'll just--" He stands and walks back to the bed. He lies down over David and pulls him back into their body, and then steps out of it again. 

He sits down next to Dvd in the chairs by David's bed, and stares at David like he can somehow will him better.


	21. Day 6: We're all real and we're all going to get better.

David sleeps. He sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. He wakes briefly, hungry, and eats the food he finds waiting by his bed. Dumplings. He swallows the last one and lies back down and sleeps again, and stays down in the quiet deep. 

When he finally returns to the surface, there’s something on his chest. He reaches for it, eyes still closed, and feels something warm and silky-soft. 

He cracks open one eye. Matilda is curled up on his chest, her back to him like she’s his own personal bodyguard. Or like he’s her own personal heating pad. Probably that. 

He pets her a few times and then goes still again. He closes his eye. He feels Matilda’s weight against every breath, but she’s not heavy.

The past few days slowly trickle back into his mind. Going away and coming back to find everything had changed. Being out of his body and then forced back into it. Accepting that he can’t kill himself, and then deciding that he shouldn’t. Listening to Kerry talk about living. Syd touching him, forgiving him. And then Oliver and Amy and Lenny all coming back at once. 

It’s no wonder he was so tired. 

And he still has to do the hard work. 

He doesn’t know how he’s going to get through it. He’s probably still doomed no matter what he does. All this work, it’s just a hobby, like writing his name over and over. At the end of it he’ll have a full notebook and a sore hand and he’ll still get run over. But he remembers making the choice to try and it’s a clear, untainted memory of a clear, untainted choice. He won’t give up something so precious without a fight, even if he knows he’ll have to give it up. 

He reaches up and pets Matilda some more. She purrs loudly and the vibration goes right into him. It’s very soothing. Maybe he can convince Syd to let Matilda be his therapy cat when she doesn’t need her. 

“Morning.” 

David opens his eyes. It’s Kerry. 

“Morning,” he replies, and is suddenly overcome with the urge to stretch. He gives into it even though it startles Matilda. She leaps off of him and into Kerry’s lap. 

Hmm. Apparently they’ll all have to take turns with Matilda. 

He sits up and looks around. The morning sun is up, and the city noises filter in from outside, mostly muted by Division 3’s thick walls and windows. This place is a fortress, as good at keeping things out as keeping them in. 

Maybe he’ll never get out of here. Maybe this is all he’ll ever have. But he wants to live so he has to try.

“Cary’s getting us breakfast,” Kerry tells him, as she pets Matilda. “Eggs and stuff. Eggs are okay, I guess. I don’t have to chew them much. How’s your jaw?”

David rubs his jaw, works it. It’s still sore but it doesn’t hurt anymore. “Better. I think the swelling's gone.”

“Good.”

Kerry doesn’t seem to have anything to add to that, so David slides out of bed and tries to get his bearings. Another session with Ptonomy today, he can do that. He needs to do it. 

He looks over at the cots. Syd’s still asleep. She—

He turns away. He shouldn’t even think of her. He thinks about her anyway. He wishes he could hold her hand, but he never will. 

God, he doesn’t know how he’s going to get through any of this. 

Cary comes back, thank goodness, and saves him from himself. Kerry carries Matilda with her to the table and Cary gives her a bowl of shredded chicken. Rather than put Matilda down to let her eat, Kerry hand feeds her each piece of chicken, one by one. 

“I’m practicing on Matilda,” Kerry explains. “We all have to get used to eating.”

“That’s right,” Cary says, supportively. “Nutrition is very important for all of us. Which reminds me. David, we’re starting a new meal plan. No more waffles for a while and no sugar. We need protein and fat and lots of vegetables.”

“Uh, we?” David asks.

“We’re all getting better together, right?” Kerry says. “So we’re gonna eat better together, too. Except, you know, the people who don’t eat.”

Which is— David counts. Half of them. His life is madness. 

He digs into his eggs. There’s spinach and ham and mushrooms mixed in, and cheese on top. It’s good. 

The smell of breakfast rouses Syd, and she gets up and joins them. Her bed head is— David looks back down at his eggs. His own hair is probably a mess. He hasn’t even brushed his teeth. 

It’s— It’s actually—

It reminds him of breakfast with Amy. With his family, on weekend mornings when no one was in a rush. It reminds him of that.

Amy.

He fell apart in front of her yesterday. She's probably worried, upset. She's dead and he upset her. 

No. Alive. She's alive in the mainframe, with Ptonomy and Lenny. She was dead and now she's not. They'll get her out again, somehow, when it's safe. If it's ever safe.

If he can't get better, does that mean she'll be trapped in the mainframe forever? Will all of them?

"David." Divad appears, sitting at the table, even though he's one of the half of them that doesn't eat. Has he ever eaten? He's probably eaten when he was in their body, in the memories David lost. Maybe he likes eggs. Maybe David should let him eat, give him a turn at all this existing.

"David?" Syd's looking at him, concerned, and then so are the others. He has to stop falling apart like this. He has to pull himself together. He has to get through this so everyone else will be okay.

"David," Divad says again. "I'm going to help you, okay? Don't freak out."

David squeezes his eyes shut. "Okay," he says, his chest tight.

The pressure lets out of his thoughts like a balloon with a leak. It goes down, down, slow and steady. He leans his elbows on the table and slumps over his eggs.

"What just happened?" Syd asks.

"I was spiralling," David admits. "Divad helped."

"Oh! Um, thank you, Divad," Syd says, not sure where to look.

"Yeah, thanks," Kerry adds, and Cary adds his, too.

Divad looks quite pleased, but then focuses back on David. "This isn't all on you," Divad says. "Everyone's here to help you."

But what if he can't be helped? What if this is all for nothing?

"Then it's for nothing," Divad says. "But I don't think it is and neither do you."

He ruined everything before. That's what he does. He ruins everything.

"You know that's not true," Divad says.

"Quitting before you even start?" Dvd says, appearing in another chair. "Quitter. Chicken." He makes clucking noises.

David stares at him. "I'm not quitting. I'm just--"

"Quitter," Dvd taunts.

"I'm not quitting!" David says, and then slumps back in his chair. "Sorry. Sorry."

Dvd's the one who looks pleased with himself, now. "Good. I'm only doing this stupid therapy thing for you, so you'd better appreciate it."

Divad gives Dvd an exasperated look. "You can't keep your mouth shut for five minutes?"

Dvd shrugs. "What's it matter? He was going to find out anyway."

"You have absolutely no sense of timing," Divad says. "Let him eat his breakfast before you give him anything else to deal with."

"He wasn't eating it anyway," Dvd says. "He was freaking out. Now he's not. That was me. Keep it up and I'm gonna be the one who protects David's mind and his body, and you'll be out of a job."

David turns to Cary. "Is there something going on with my therapy session today?"

"Ah, yes," Cary says, surprised to be addressed. "We all thought it would be helpful for the three of you to do a group session together. You and Divad and Dvd."

David presses at his face. "How would that even--"

"Oliver," says Kerry. 

"Right," David says. Oliver. Just what he needs. His torture victim can relay the thoughts of his multiple identities to his android not-dead therapist.

Dvd laughs. "Okay, that was funny."

David cannot, cannot deal with any of this. He shuts up and eats his eggs. He's almost done when a thought occurs to him. "Wait, how did you--"

Divad flashes guilty. 

"No," David says, angrily. "No, you have no right to just take my body like that."

"Our body," Dvd says.

"Is that why I slept so much?" David asks them. "Because you wanted a turn?" He would have happily let them have their body all the time, but they wouldn't let him. And now they're walking away with it when he's asleep. They're as bad as Syd!

"You needed to rest," Divad defends. "I'm sorry I didn't ask, but you were-- You didn't need to worry about it. You still don't. I only used it to talk to your friends so we could figure out how to help you."

"Well don't," David says, still angry. "Don't help me. You can all just stop helping me. I'm doing this on my own. It's my fault and I have to fix it and I've always done this on my own!"

Divad doesn't like that. "You really, really haven't. You can't remember it, but you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for us. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, for our friends."

"Our friends?" David asks, astonished. "You can't even talk to them without hijacking my body."

"They're my friends, too," Divad insists.

"You're not even real," David says.

"Well neither are you!" Divad shoots back. "That's what you think all the time, right? I can hear it, we both can. You're not real so it's fine if you shrivel up and die. Well that delusion is over. It's done. We're all real and we're all going to get better. So stop trying to scare yourself out of trying."

David stares at him. What even happened when he was asleep?

"I see you've started without us," Ptonomy says. Oliver is with him, looking rough but standing on his own.

David puts his hand over his face and slumps in his chair again. He's really starting to miss his cell. It was awful but at least he had some peace and quiet.

"Talk about a bad thought," Dvd mutters. 

"Everyone, Divad, Dvd. Can you give David some space?"

Everyone clears away from the table, taking their plates with them. Divad and Dvd stay visible, but they walk away with the others.

The Vermillion sits down next to David. Oliver sits on the other side.

"I heard all of it," Oliver says, before David even has the chance to think the question. "So did he. We were testing the relay when you woke up."

"Great," David says, flatly. Now there's five people listening to his thoughts at all times. No, actually, now the whole world is, because the mainframe isn't built for privacy. His entire life isn't built for privacy.

"I'm sorry," Ptonomy says. "I know there's aspects of your treatment that make this harder for you. We're doing the best we can with an extremely difficult situation. Privacy is a compromise we had to make."

"I didn't make it," David says.

"Well, I'd like to not be dead," Ptonomy says back. "Oliver would like to not have been tortured. I'm sure Melanie doesn't want to be lost on the astral plane. Should I go on?"

"Please don't."

"I know you're scared," Ptonomy says, gentler. "I know this is a lot. But Divad is right. You're not carrying this alone. This isn't something you have to do to save us. It's something we're helping you do so you can save yourself."

David thinks of Farouk, telling him to play the hero from his hospital bed. He's not a hero.

"Do you think saving someone's life is heroic?" Ptonomy asks.

David looks at him. He was right, he is going to start forgetting to say anything aloud. Who's even left that he should bother? Kerry and Cary? Syd? Matilda?

"Maybe not Matilda," Ptonomy allows. "I think everyone else wants you to talk. But you didn't answer the question. Do you think saving someone's life is heroic?"

"Yes," David says, but--

"That's what you're doing now," Ptonomy says. "Saving David's life. Or do you think David doesn't deserve to be saved?"

David tries not to think his answer. He thinks it anyway.

No, he doesn't.

"That's why we need to save him," Ptonomy says. "I think Farouk's right about one thing. You should be a hero. But you have to save yourself before you can save anyone else."

"I think we all know what kind of hero I make," David says. "I did such a good job I turned into a villain."

"What do you think a villain is, David? What's your definition?"

"Someone who goes crazy and ends the world?"

"You didn't do that," Ptonomy reminds him. "That's what Farouk wants, but that future hasn't happened yet. It never will, if we can save you. So what's a villain?"

David struggles, thinking back over his painful memories. "Someone who's-- Who's selfish and cruel and doesn't care about anyone else. Someone who hurts people."

Someone like Farouk. Someone like David, or what Farouk turned David into.

"You think you're like him?" Ptonomy asks.

"Obviously." Farouk wiped his memory and David wiped Syd's. Farouk tortured him and David tortured Oliver. Farouk thinks he's a god and David thought he was one, before he crashed back down to earth. Farouk lived inside him and shaped him and twisted him into whatever he wanted David to be. Farouk claimed to think of him as his baby. Obviously he's going to turn out just like Farouk. Obviously. He never had a chance to become anything else.

"Is that what you're afraid of?" Ptonomy asks. "That you're going to look into your own heart and find it's his?"

David can't say it, can't even think it. The fear is too huge.

He doesn't want it. He never asked for it. But he never had a choice. Farouk's made him do so many awful things. If David could just die it would stop, but he can't die. No one will let him and he doesn't want to, but he doesn't want what's coming for him. He doesn't want it.

"If you don't want it, if it's not your choice, it's not who you are," Ptonomy reminds him. "Farouk lived in your head for thirty years. What's the worst he made you do in all that time? Mostly he made you hurt yourself. You've hurt other people, it's true. But you didn't do it because you enjoyed it. You didn't do it because you wanted them to suffer. Every time you hurt someone, you hurt yourself. And maybe that was all he wanted, but I don't think so. I think when he realized how powerful you are, he tried to take you over, to make you the same as him, but he couldn't. Because David has always been David. There has always been a part of you that has fought against him with everything you have. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't change that. He can't."

God, David wants to believe that. He wants to.

"You don't have to believe it yet," Ptonomy says. "We'll do that for you, until you can. But you have to trust us. You have to let us help you."

David swallows. "I'm trying," he says. He doesn't know if he can be helped, but he's trying.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "And if you don't want to be a villain, I think you should start by apologizing for hurting your friends. We've all worked hard to save you. I know you're scared but that doesn't make it okay to dismiss us, or to tell Divad and Dvd they're not real. Or to dismiss yourself."

"Should I apologize to myself, too?" David asks, in bleak humor.

"Actually, yes," Ptonomy says. "But I know you won't, so save that for later."

Ouch. David felt that cut go deep.

He turns to where everyone moved to give him space. "I'm sorry," he tells them, and means it. "I'm sorry for saying I didn't need your help. I'm sorry for saying Divad and Dvd aren't real."

He doesn't apologize to himself. Ptonomy's right, he can't. He doesn't deserve apologies.

Divad and Dvd come over. "Apology accepted," Divad says. "So if you're done with your therapy session, can we have ours now?"

David whimpers. 

"Take ten minutes," Ptonomy tells him. "Clear your head. Then we'll start."

Clear his head. In ten minutes. Hilarious. David puts his head down in his arms and tries not to think about anything at all.


	22. Day 6: Matilda doesn't belong to anyone but herself.

David’s never much liked group therapy.

He never saw the point of it. He already hates the way he has to open himself up in private sessions, displaying every broken part of himself to some therapist for inspection and judgement. But doing that in front of random people so they can pick him over like he's some kind of mental health yard sale? No, thank you. He'd have opted out of it if he'd ever been able to opt out of anything.

He doesn't have a choice about it now, either. So once again, here he is, sitting in a circle of chairs and waiting to be pulled apart and picked over. The only difference is that this time, the other patients are also himself.

Sort of.

"Maybe we should start with that," Ptonomy says.

God, David hates this. He just wants to have some part of himself to himself. But no. He can't stop his thoughts from being overheard. He can't opt out of having them fed into the mainframe. He should probably try to keep his mind blank but what's the point? If everyone's going to listen in on him anyway, he's going to give them the full David Haller fucked-head experience. They can choke on it, just like Farouk.

Everyone looks at him. They're not impressed. He doesn't care.

"Dissociative Identity Disorder," Ptonomy says, continuing on. "Getting that diagnosis upset you."

"Yeah," David says, tersely and aloud. "It was upsetting. I'm still upset."

"I can see that," Ptonomy says. "So tell me why."

Divad and Dvd continue to look at him, but now with an air of expectation. Or foreboding.

Oh god, he can't do this. He can't do this. He can't sit here and talk about himself to two other people who are also himself.

"Is that what upsets you?" Ptonomy asks. "That you feel Divad and Dvd aren't real people?"

David sits up from his slouch. "I'm sorry, how are they real people? They're just--" He taps aggressively at his own head. "Pieces, broken pieces of this broken mess. I'm delusional. I'm hallucinating." 

“It’s not typical for DID to present with hallucinations,” Ptonomy admits. “But between your powers and the extreme stress your mind suffered, that’s how your DID presents. As for why? Your powers already enable you to separate your mind from your body. You can hear the thoughts of others. And that’s just scratching the surface. All of that is part of how you make sense of the world, even though Farouk kept you from remembering or understanding that.”

David hates it when Ptonomy does that, when he makes David's insanity into something reasonable. Like he's supposed to just accept it now.

"Accepting it is the only choice you have," Ptonomy says. "Divad and Dvd are part of you. They're not going to go away. They can't. Even Farouk couldn't get rid of them."

"Maybe he didn't try hard enough," David mutters.

Dvd crosses his arms angrily.

"You all have to learn to live together," Ptonomy insists. "Divad and Dvd still remember how things used to be for the three of you, but you don't. Those memories may be gone forever. So you have to start over. But you can't do that if you can't accept that they're just as real as you and me."

"A ringing endorsement," David says. Then he feels bad. "Sorry. Sorry." Shit. 

Shit.

"I'm sorry," he says again. He leans forward and puts his face in his hands. God, he's such an idiot. If any of them aren't real, it's him.

"Why wouldn't you be real?" Ptonomy asks. "You're the main identity in your system. Divad and Dvd came into existence to protect you. Your name and the name attached to your body are the same."

God, that makes it sound even worse.

"I don't remember being a system," David insists. "I remember being me. Just me. Broken and fucked up, but me. And now I'm-- I'm not me. I'm not a person, I'm just--"

Madness. He's just madness. Like the black monster that killed Ptonomy. Someone should pull him out of his own head and crush him under a boot.

"Please stop that," Divad says, pained. "Please."

"You told me to stop deluding myself,” David reminds him. “God doesn’t love me, remember? You were right. I’ve always known what I am. _We’ve_ always known what we are, your words. I forgot everything else but I still remember that.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Divad defends.

“Yes it was,” Dvd interrupts. “Maybe not the real part, but all you did for years was yell at David for failing. You’re the one who made him hate himself.”

“David already hated himself,” Divad says back. “But yeah, I made it worse.” He turns to David. “I’m sorry for that.”

David doesn’t know what to say to that. “I don’t remember,” he says, helplessly. Plenty of people yelled at him for failing, there was practically a line around the block sometimes. But he doesn’t—

God, he doesn’t know anything. His past could be a complete invention for all he remembers it. Philly used to accuse him of that. If Amy didn’t exist, if he hadn’t been to his childhood home last year, if there wasn’t external documentation of his existence, he would have nothing to say he ever existed at all. But external isn't enough. Maybe Farouk went too far one day and just started from scratch. Maybe David died and he’s just another alter, one Farouk tricked into thinking he was real. 

“We know he didn’t,” Divad insists. “We were there. You’re still you. You always have been.”

“No,” David says. “How would you know if he made you forget?”

There’s nothing. There’s nothing to hold him, he’s just air from a balloon that popped and he’s being blown away. 

No one says anything. What could they say? 

“David,” Ptonomy says, quietly. 

“What?” David asks him, genuinely wanting to know. What could anyone possibly say to help him have some way to know he is who everyone thinks he is?

“I don’t think there is anything anyone could say,” Ptonomy admits. “You do exist. You know you do. What you need is continuity. Something to connect you to who you were before you forgot. If Amy isn’t enough, if Divad and Dvd aren’t enough, then you need something only you can provide. A memory.”

Divad stiffens. 

“One of your own,” Ptonomy adds. 

“I tried,” David says. “There’s nothing. He took all of it.”

“I don’t believe that,” Ptonomy insists. “I think there’s something of your past inside you, just like Amy was still inside after her body was altered into Lenny’s. Whether that's because Farouk left it behind to hurt you with or because you didn’t want to remember.”

“You’re saying I made myself forget?” David asks, horrified.

"Traumatic memory loss is very common," Ptonomy soothes. "If the memories are there, they can be recovered. But I didn't want to suggest that before because those are also going to be the hardest for you. The memories of things too terrible for you to bear."

God, how does this keep getting worse? "So you're saying that-- That the only way for me to know I'm me, is to remember being tortured?" 

"As a last resort," Ptonomy allows. "But there's no need for us to do that if there are other memories. Memories you can't find on your own, just like you couldn't find Amy even when you looked for her. They might even be hidden in plain sight. You can only know what they are because you have two people who have their own memories of everything you've experienced. If you look together, you have a real chance of finding something. But to do that you're going to have to let them in. You're going to have to trust them. So what do you want to try? Do you want to recover a traumatic memory on your own, or do you want to find a good memory with their help?"

David wishes it was a choice. He wishes he could do this on his own. But as bad as forgetting has been, he knows remembering his own torture would be so much worse. And he knows that even if he doesn't remember it, he hasn't done anything on his own. He's been full of people trying to help him and hurt him his entire life. His mind has been the battleground of decades of invisible warfare.

It seems like all he ever does anymore is give up control of himself: of his powers and his body, of his privacy and his thoughts. And now he has to give up his memory to two people living inside him who he can't remember.

It's probably only going to make things worse. Whatever Farouk hid in him, it'll only make things worse. But he can't keep going like this, with nothing to hold him, quicksand pulling him down every time he tries to take a step. He needs something solid to stand on, even if the odds are it's just going to crumble under his weight and send him plummeting down the sheerest drop.

"Okay," he says, faintly. "When do we start?"

§

They're going to start after lunch. Ptonomy orders David to take the rest of the morning off to relax while he and Oliver talk to Divad and Dvd. He can do that now that he can hear everything in David's head, since the three people that he thinks he is are independently functioning. David can sit and read a trashy romance novel while his alters have a strategy meeting with his therapist.

If Ptonomy could actually see Divad and Dvd, that might make this whole thing vaguely normal. But he's just listening to them through Oliver's telepathic relay, and then talking back to them through Oliver from inside the mainframe through the interface of an android. It's only David's delusional hallucination that the four of them are sitting together.

Honestly, this whole thing is giving him a headache. Which is probably not a helpful thing to have when he's about to go sifting through his brain. He puts aside the book and goes to rummage through the first aid cabinet. He finds some painkillers and takes two of them.

At least this means Divad won't need to borrow his body anymore. No more sneaking off with it while David's asleep. God, that whole thing creeped him out so much. 

When he closes the cabinet and turns, Syd is standing there. David nearly has a minor heart attack.

Speaking of nighttime invasions...

No, that's not fair, even just in his own head.

"Kind of a rough morning," Syd says, sympathetically.

David makes a pained noise. He fills a cup at the sink and washes down the pills. "I've been having a lot of those lately. Rough mornings." He'd say he can't remember the last time he had a good morning, but he has no idea what he remembers anymore.

He remembers Syd. Looking at her, all he can do is remember. The bad things and the good, and the good hurt worst of all.

He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to even begin to say.

"How's the book?" she asks.

"It's a book," David says. "Honestly, I can barely concentrate. I keep reading the same paragraphs over and over."

"They must be fascinating paragraphs," Syd says.

She's trying, for him. He knows she's trying. He doesn't understand why she thinks he's worth the effort, but he does appreciate it. Honestly, he's never thought he was worth the effort for her. But she keeps putting it in anyway.

That's what all of them keep doing. Putting change into the broken machine that is his head, hoping something's going to come out of it.

"How's your book?" David asks, because the least he can do is hold up his end of a conversation. She has her psychology book tucked under her arm. This morning she was going through it with different colored highlighters. "Have you found everything that's wrong with me yet?"

"So far," Syd says, with a little smile. "I just started the chapter on traumatic memory loss. Keep it up and I think we'll work our way through the whole book. I'm learning a lot."

"Glad I could be of service."

She holds out the book. "You want to see?"

"Not really," David says, eyeing it warily. "Besides, I still have those paragraphs to re-read before I get my brain sifted. I don't want to clutter up all that empty space."

She gives him that familiar, tolerant look. The one where she isn't sure if she should hug him or hit him. Not that she ever did much of either. But she probably could do them now, if she wanted to.

He doesn't want her to. He doesn't want her to fill him up with quarters that are never going to pay out.

"You don't have to sit alone," Syd tells him. "If you're just going to read. We can read together."

Like they did in Clockworks, he thinks. They couldn't touch, so they would sit together and read. Or he would sit and she would draw him. 

She shouldn't be able to stand his presence. She should be angry with him. She should throw her book at his head and kick him in the shins until he bleeds.

"David," she says, softly.

"I can't," he tells her, tightly. "I know what you want but I can't." He can't forgive himself. He can't understand why she's forgiven him.

"I know," she says. "But that's not what I'm asking right now. I'm just asking you to sit with me while we read together. We don't even have to sit close. Just... in the same part of the lab. How about by the window? You like sitting by the window."

He does. He does like sitting by the window.

"Matilda can join us," Syd adds. "She likes you."

"I scared her," David says. Yesterday. He yelled and she ran away.

"She came back. She's a therapy cat. She's used to a little scare now and then. She knows you need her."

David doesn't think they're talking about the cat anymore.

"She should be someone else's therapy cat," David says, hugging himself. "Kerry needs her to practice eating with. She can be Kerry's."

"Matilda doesn't belong to anyone but herself," Syd says. "That's why I like her, remember? She does what she wants. Mostly what she wants is to take care of people who are hurting."

David's hands clench at his arms. "I guess that's me. One big cat bed of pain."

"Yeah," Syd agrees. "And you're warm, she likes that. She likes being touched. Touch is-- It's really important. Especially when you don't get enough. There's terms for that. Touch starvation. Skin hunger. Somatosensory Affectional Deprivation."

"Are you giving me another diagnosis?"

"It's one of mine, but we can share."

David huffs at that. "We really are going to work our way through your whole book."

"I think it would be good for you to read it."

David shakes his head.

"Okay," Syd says. "Reading about my diagnoses helped me a lot while you were gone. It helped me understand what was happening to me. It gave me context. It helped me see I wasn't alone. What I was feeling, what I still feel, so many other people feel it that they had to put it in a reference book."

"I'm a unique case."

"You are. You definitely are. But so's everyone. No one else has my powers. No one else has been through what you've been through. But we can share the pieces that match."

"And how do we match?" David asks, before he can stop himself.

Syd gives him a steady look. "When we don't get enough touch, it makes us sick. We feel lonely, depressed, angry at the world. It dehumanizes us and stunts our growth. Touch calms our anxiety. It makes us feel safe and nurtured."

She takes a step towards him, another. She reaches up her hand, slowly, so slowly. He holds utterly still as she rests her gloved palm against his cheek. He doesn't even breathe, not until she takes it away, and then he takes a shaky, desperate gasp.

"It'll be okay," she tells him, like she somehow knows. Like she can see his future and it's not a burning, toxic disaster, like the rest of his life has been. "I promise. So just-- Come and sit by the window with me and Matilda."

She steps back and walks over to the window, positions two chairs. She calls for Matilda and the cat trots over. The morning sun is still slanting through, casting warm light on the chairs. Matilda hops onto one seat and curls up in the sunbeam.

Syd sits down and opens her book. She glances back at him, then reads.

David can't move. He stands there, long minutes ticking away while all he can do is feel the ghost of her hand against his cheek. But finally he does. He walks back to his bed and picks up his book. He didn't even mark where he was reading. He just closed it and put it down. He read the same paragraphs over and over, but now he's lost them. He doesn't know where he left off.

Maybe... Maybe he can just start again. At the beginning. Table of contents, author's notes, chapter one, page one. Maybe he can do that.

Maybe.

But he's not ready to sit with Syd by the window. Not yet. He lies back down and doesn't open the book.


	23. Day 6: He's sitting on the bed in the white room.

"Okay, David," Ptonomy says, in his soothing, musical therapist tone. "It's time to get started. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," David says, and rubs his palms against his thighs, trying to believe his own words. This is probably going to be a disaster, but as usual all he can do is let whatever's coming for him happen to him. He hopes whatever's going to run him over isn't too horrible. He doesn't think he can take anything horrible right now, even if it's only the memory of something horrible.

They remade the circle of chairs after lunch. It's the five of them again: David, Dvd, Divad, Oliver, and the Vermillion.

He looks at Oliver. Oliver should be resting, not being forced to endure this on David's behalf.

"It's all right," Oliver assures him. "It's quite soothing, actually. Like listening to a burbling stream. Besides, I'd hear you even if I wasn't helping. Your thoughts resound."

"A resounding burble?" David asks, skeptically.

"I prefer it to the sound of cracking ice," Oliver replies.

He has a point.

"So how's this going to work?" David asks. "Is it like a memory walk?"

"Unfortunately, no," Ptonomy says. "With my body gone, we have no way of entering your memories directly to experience them with you. Divad and Dvd can hear your thoughts, as we can, but they can't see what you're remembering unless you show them."

"How do I do that?"

"The crown prevents you from using your powers. But your mind still works the way it always has. You were able to step out of your body the same way you would astral project. Think of this as creating an environment on the astral plane. The environment is your memory. Bring Divad and Dvd into it, just as you would bring someone into a psychic space you created."

A white room. He has to make a white room, but made of his memories and only existing inside his own mind.

"Okay," he says, mulling it over. "I think I can do that."

"Good," Ptonomy says. "Once all three of you are in your memories, Divad and Dvd will guide you through them, as I would have. They'll help you avoid the ones they know aren't safe, and they'll look for something good that matches their memories. Oh, and one more thing. Amy's going to help."

"Hey," says Amy.

David tenses up. "No, that's-- No."

"She won't be able to see your memories," Ptonomy assures him. "She'll just hear your thoughts, like the rest of us."

Oh god, Amy can hear his thoughts. Of course she can, she's in the mainframe. She and Lenny have heard everything he's been thinking all day.

He tries to stop himself from thinking about her laughing at him, so of course that's the only thing he can think about. God, why can't he forget _that_? He remembers like five things out of his entire life and that's one of them, and of course it is because why would he remember anything real?

"We need Amy's help," Divad tells him. "Dvd and I didn't exist at the beginning. Amy's older than all of us, she remembers how you were before us. She remembers how we were from the outside."

"It's important that Amy's part of this," Ptonomy insists. "She has her own perspective of your life, one separate from all the mental games that Farouk put you through."

"Farouk ripped her out of her body," David protests. "What if he did something else to her?"

"I don't think he could have anticipated this," Ptonomy says. "He was trying to make you lose your mind so you'd end the world. He expected to achieve that. That's why he left Amy alive for you to find. The longer it took for you to figure that out, the more damage her existence would do to you. Messing with her memory doesn't fit into that. He didn't want you to doubt that she was real, so he left her whole."

Whole. He left her whole. David wishes that wasn't such a relief. He wishes Syd hadn't stopped him, he wishes he'd finished smashing Farouk's head in until his brains spilled out all over the sand.

"It's a good thing you didn't," Ptonomy says. "That's what happened in the future Syd was trying to avoid, wasn't it? You killed him in the desert. That along with Amy and whatever else happened in that timeline pushed you over the edge. It broke you so badly that nothing could fix you again."

God. And here David is, laying himself down on the tracks so something else can break him.

"You're not gonna get broken," Dvd insists. "We're gonna keep you safe. Just like your-- Just like _our_ friends did when they saved Amy."

Divad looks at Dvd in surprise. So does David.

"What?" Dvd shrugs, defensively. "We always share everything. I'm not gonna get left out now just because you don't remember how we work."

"David," says Amy, her voice coming out of the Vermillion. "Please let me help. I want to help you."

Like she helped him by locking him up in a mental hospital for six years. Shit, he didn't want her to hear that. He needs to stop thinking about anything.

"You're right, I did do that you to," Amy says, and she sounds sad but not nearly as upset as he expected her to be. "It was-- I just wanted to keep you safe, but that place wasn't safe for you. I'm sorry."

David looks away, looks toward the window. He always knew she was sorry. He always knew, even if he thought it was just a delusion that he heard her think about how sorry she was. He lost years of his life and most of what was left of his mind to that place. Farouk was right, he was angry with her all the time, he was so angry but he swallowed it because he deserved to be there, he deserved it. 

"You didn't deserve it," Amy says, and now she sounds upset. "David, they wouldn't let you out for my wedding, for our father's funeral. And I let them keep you there. I'm your legal guardian, I could have-- When I realized you weren't getting better I should have found somewhere else. I should have kept trying to find you the right kind of help, even if I didn't know what that was."

But she didn't.

"You're right. I didn't."

He doesn't want to be angry. He just wants to be happy she's alive. But he's angry, he's so angry, even though he deserved to be stuck in that place forever because he's-- 

He cuts that thought off before Divad can. He's never going to get better if he keeps spiralling.

"I need to focus on getting better," he says, saying the words aloud so he can hear them with his own two ears and listen to them.

"I know," Amy says. "That's why I'm asking you to let me help. I love you, okay? All I've ever wanted was for you to be healthy and happy and-- That's all I want. Please let me help you."

That's not all she wants. She wants him to be normal. She wants him to be normal and easy and clean. And he'll never be that. No matter what he does, he'll never be that.

But he has to get better. He has to get better. He doesn't want to end the world.

"Fine," he says, surrendering. It's not his choice anyway, like any of this is his choice.

No, he's choosing to get better. He chose to try. He remembers that. It's never going to work but he chose to try.

"Thank you," Amy says, quietly.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, taking control again. "David, take a minute and clear your head."

Oh, he just needs a minute now instead of ten? Even more hilarious.

"When you're ready," Ptonomy continues, "I want you to create a mental white room and go into it, then bring Divad and Dvd in. Don't cut off the outside world completely. You still need to be able to hear us."

Okay. Okay, he can do this. 

David brings his legs up and folds himself into a meditation pose, settles until he's comfortable. He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. Slow, even breaths, nice and deep. Calm, he's calm.

He can do this. He knows how to do this.

And then he's not sitting in a chair in Cary's lab. He's sitting on the bed in the white room.

He gets off the bed quickly, walks back from it.

This isn't the white room. Not the real one, the one where-- It's not really that one, just like he wasn't really astral projecting when he stepped out of his body. It's just a trick he's playing on himself.

Like Farouk tricked him when he taught him how to make the real white room. When he--

No. No. He's not thinking about any of that now. He has to focus on getting better.

This is his mind and his mind is his own, or at least this corner of it is. In his own mind, in this space, he decides what's real and what isn't. 

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, the bed is gone. The carpet, the sofa, they're all gone. It's just an empty room with sheer curtains moving with the gentle breeze that's coming in through the open sliding doors. 

"David?" It's Ptonomy's voice, drifting in with the breeze. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," David calls back. He doesn't know if his body is thinking or saying it, but it doesn't really matter. "I'm bringing in Divad and Dvd now."

He knows how to do this, too. It's just like reaching out and pulling Syd in. And then they're here, Divad and Dvd, standing in front of him.

"Nice," Dvd says, looking around. "Decided to redecorate? Hmm, you know what this place needs?"

Astronomy posters appear on the walls, the same ones from David's childhood bedroom. So much for this place being his own.

"We're part of you, dummy," Dvd says, but fondly. "And we're people," he says, before David can say it. "Like Ptonomy said, we're complicated people."

Complicated is right.

"Let's get started," Divad says. "Amy, you're up."

"She is?" David asks.

"We're not just looking for one good memory, we’re figuring out the story of your life. Do you actually remember being a baby?" Divad asks.

David tries. He remembers seeing himself as a baby when Oliver and Cary were ripping Farouk out of his memories, but he doesn't remember _being_ a baby.

"Yeah, that's why Amy's up," Divad says. "She'll tell us the early years, then you join in when your memories start. Just try and picture whatever she's telling us."

This whole situation suddenly reminds David of being stuck on the astral plane with his rational mind. That experience actually helped him a lot. Maybe this won't be a complete disaster.

He probably just jinxed himself. Oh, well, never mind.

"Amy, go ahead," says Ptonomy. "How did you meet David?"

"I was four," Amy says. "It was late. I was in my room and I heard voices. I snuck out onto the landing and-- there was a man."

David blinks and they're standing in his childhood home. A young Amy is on the landing above, looking down through the wooden posts of the railing.

"For a long time, I thought it was a dream," child Amy says, her voice changing to match how David perceives her. "But you were real." 

Child Amy points, and David turns to see his parents standing in the hall with a man. The man is hidden in shadow. David walks up to him but he can't see his face, like he couldn't see his father's face when he tried during his memory walks.

"We don't know what this mystery man looks like," Divad explains. "Our mind will fill in what it can, but this isn't actually a memory."

David looks at his parents. His mother is holding a baby in her arms. It's him.

It's him.

This isn't real. It's not even his memory. He's just-- It's just his mind, filling in the blanks of Amy's story. But it's him. It's David, or whatever his name was before it was David.

"Did they-- Did they name me?" David asks. "Did they give me a new name?"

"I don't know," child Amy says. "One day I had a new little brother named David. You were the sweetest thing. I didn't care where you came from."

David looks at baby David again. Baby David looks back at him. "Farouk hadn't-- He hadn't found me yet." 

God, if only there was a way to go back and stop all this. To keep himself safe. Maybe he can. He sent his mind forward in time to talk to Future Syd. Maybe he could send his mind back, find some way to warn his parents. He could undo all of it, all of it, and then he'd just be-- he'd just be whoever he was supposed to be before Farouk took everything. He'd be someone else, he wouldn't exist anymore but-- It would be suicide, Farouk said changing the timeline would be-- But that would be okay, because-- He wouldn't be--

"David," Divad says, drawing him back with a hand on his shoulder. "Right now you have to focus on getting better. You can't do anything until you're better."

"Right," David says, wobbling back from the edge. The idea won't go away, but he has to focus on getting better. He can't send his mind anywhere until he gets rid of the crown and he can't get rid of the crown until he's stable and he won't be stable until he's better.

He can't kill himself until he's better. He feels a little manic, thinking that.

"Amy?" Divad asks. "What happened next?"

"We were happy," child Amy says. "David was the little brother I always wanted. But then-- You got sick. No one could figure out what was wrong. You cried and cried. The doctors couldn't help."

"Farouk," David says, knows it. Farouk got into him, made him sick.

"You’d only stop crying when I held you," child Amy says. 

And then the room changes and they're in Amy's childhood bedroom, and she's a little older and she's holding baby David, and he's a little older, too. He has tear tracks on his face but they're dry, and he's smiling up at Amy as he grabs at her hair.

David's heart aches, seeing them. It hurts. Why did everything have to go so wrong?

"Eventually you stopped crying, but you were always-- Sensitive," child Amy says, as she plays with baby David. "It was easy for things to upset you. Living away from everyone, out in the country made it easier to keep you calm, but-- It was so hard for you to be happy."

"I thought I was happy," David says. He did. He remembers being-- "I remember being loved."

"You were loved," child Amy says, smiling as her eyes fill with tears. "We loved you so much, as much as we could. And you loved us back as much as you could."

David kneels before her. He remembers Ptonomy telling him not to interact with his memories. But these aren't memories and he needs to hug Amy so much. He doesn't care about Clockworks, he doesn't care about any of it.

And then she's hugging him, she's fully grown and hugging him so tight. He holds her and buries his face against her shoulder, and her long hair brushes his cheek.

It's not real. It's just his mind filling in the blank where she used to be. But he misses her so much, so much. She's dead and she's alive and he might never see her again, she might be trapped in the mainframe forever because of him, she might have been trapped in Lenny forever because of him. 

"No, David," Amy says, and his mind fills in the blanks so he can feel her speaking against his chest. "You didn't do any of that. You can't-- you can't say you deserve what I did to you, and blame yourself for something someone else did to me."

"I really can," David says, through his tears. She's not here. She doesn't have a body anymore. He shouldn't-- It's wrong, doing this. Holding her when she isn't-- It's wrong.

He blinks and Amy is gone. Child Amy and baby David are gone, too.

He slumps over the bed and tries to pull himself back together. He has to get through this. He has to get better.

"David?" Amy's voice comes in through the open window. She's worried, he can hear it.

David pushes himself back to his feet. He wipes his eyes. "What happened next?" he asks, and congratulates himself for the relative steadiness of his voice.

It takes a moment for Amy to answer.

"As you got older, things started to-- I know what it was now, but I didn't--" She takes an audible breath. "Sometimes I would leave you in the bathroom and turn around and you'd be wandering outside. You would know things, conversations you shouldn't have been able to overhear. You didn't stay put, even when we locked the doors."

David doesn't understand. "I didn't-- Amy, I didn't know about my powers. How could I have--" He thought-- he thought that Farouk suppressed them, somehow, drained him too much for them to-- He heard voices, he made things move with his mind, but those were-- He was older when that happened. 

He thought he was schizophrenic, and then he thought that he was crazy because his powers made him crazy because Farouk kept him from being able to control them. Because Farouk kept him from knowing he had powers in the first place.

"Of course we knew about our powers," Dvd says. "We used them all the time. It was great for school, we always knew the right answers because we would listen in on the smartest kid in the class."

David knew about his powers. He was a little kid and he knew about his powers and used them and controlled them and he was fine. 

"Oh my god," David says. He sits down on the bed, absolutely stunned. "I knew about my powers."

"Was he always this slow?" Dvd asks, and Divad shrugs.


	24. Day 6: I don’t think these memories are real.

"David, do you want to take a break?" Ptonomy's voice asks, through the open window of Amy's childhood bedroom.

"No," David says, distantly, then he snaps back to himself. It's a shock, learning that he knew about his powers as a kid, that he used them and controlled them. It's a shock but it's-- It's not a bad shock. It's not an 'Amy and Lenny are in the mainframe' shock. It's just-- 

He should be used to it by now, having his understanding of himself and his life completely turned upside-down. He should be used to it, but each time it knocks him flat.

He has no memory of knowing about his powers. Not when he was young, and by the time he understood that something strange was happening to him, he had his diagnosis of schizophrenia. And then when he did suspect that there was something more than schizophrenia happening to him, that he was somehow making the world change with his mind, that he was hearing actual thoughts and not delusions of thoughts--

By then, he’d already been on heavy medication for years. He’d been arrested, he'd been put onto psych holds, he'd been strapped down to hospital beds. By then, he knew not to trust his own mind, his own senses. By then, he knew he was crazy. He _knew_.

But he didn't. He didn't know it because before Farouk made him forget, he knew he had powers. So he would have known he wasn't crazy.

"Maybe we should take a break," Divad says.

"No," David says, looking up at him. "No, I have to-- I need to know the truth. The whole-- I need to know who I really am."

He's not David the lunatic. He's not-- He doesn't know who he is, who the David is who knew he had powers the whole time. But he needs to find out. 

Wait. Maybe this is the proof that he isn’t who everyone thinks he is. Maybe there was a different David who knew all of that and died and that’s why he—

“No,” Divad says, firmly. “David, we were there when he made you forget. That’s all he did, he made you forget.”

“But—“

“No,” Divad says again. “We’ll find your proof, but you have to give us the chance to do that.”

“Yeah, come on, we haven’t even got to your memories yet, much less ours,” Dvd says.

“What’s the first thing you remember?” Divad asks. “How far back can you go?”

David concentrates. He’s gone over the same few memories so many times, but what’s the earliest? 

When he opens his eyes, he’s sitting on the floor of his childhood bedroom, and there’s a crib instead of a bed. His blue rocket lamp is slowly turning, softly creaking and casting stars across every surface.

“My lamp,” he says, remembering how much it fascinated him, how he would stare at it for hours. “It’s— It’s real, I think it’s real. I accidentally broke it in Amy’s basement after—“

After Lenny appeared, or what he thought was Lenny. It was just Farouk, wearing her like a mask, starting a new game because David wasn’t a drugged, docile prisoner of Clockworks anymore. There was something new to do besides terrify him and then make him forget why he was terrified, over and over, day after day after day, while slowly sucking him dry.

Was it real?

“We liked the lamp, too,” Dvd says. “It was real. I was kinda mad when you broke it.”

David regretted breaking it. He stayed up late patching it back together, searching the basement floor for every last ceramic fragment, fixing the wiring, bending the shade back into some kind of shape. He wonders what happened to it when they moved Amy and Ben to the desert. It was so busted, even after all that work. They probably just threw it out.

“I saved it,” Amy says. “Of course I saved it. I knew how much you loved it.”

Oh.

He wants— Maybe they could—

“I’m sure we can have it brought to the lab,” Ptonomy says.

Maybe there’s a tiny upside to having his every thought heard by everyone.

Okay. So he remembers his lamp and so does everyone else. It’s not much but it’s a start. What else does he remember?

His legs pumping as he rode his tricycle down the street. The sun shining down, the scrape of skateboards against the curb. Amy on her bike, riding ahead and then back again, circling him like a hawk. 

Sitting on the grass, his fingers sticky as he blew bubbles across the yard. Picking dandelions from the lawn. Playing with toys, playing with Amy; sitting on his mom’s lap or his dad’s shoulders. 

He doesn’t remember hearing thoughts or teleporting out of bathrooms. He doesn’t remember being sad and sensitive. He remembers— He remembers being normal. A normal little boy doing normal little boy things. 

But that wasn’t real. He wasn’t normal. He knew about his powers and used them. Amy and his parents— His parents—

“They must have known,” he realizes. “That I’m a mutant. They must have known.” They took in a baby in the dead of night, of course they knew there was something unusual about him. Maybe not the extent of his powers, not at first, and they didn’t know about his parasite, but— 

Amy was a child and she knew, even if she didn’t understand what was happening, even if she thought— Amy knew and his parents must have known. 

“Why didn’t they—“ he starts, but then stops, because maybe they did talk to him about his powers. Maybe they did a lot of things that people trying to hide a powerful mutant toddler would do. But he doesn’t remember any of it. He remembers being loved by his parents, but he doesn’t remember them helping him. He—

He doesn’t remember talking to them much at all. There are moments, but— When he thinks about his family, he mostly just thinks about Amy. He didn’t know he was adopted until a few weeks ago, but he always— It’s like—

If he wasn’t already sitting down, he would have to sit down. 

During his memory walks with Ptonomy, he kept feeling like there was something in the way of him seeing his parents properly. He could see Amy fine, but Mom and Dad— He couldn’t see their faces. He remembers being loved but if he tries to remember more than that— 

“I don’t think these memories are real,” Divad says. “I don’t think any of that was. Maybe you did those things. You probably did. But you were never normal and our family knew that.”

“What did they know?” David asks. Divad and Dvd and Amy remember what he can’t. “Please, why did he make me forget them?”

He forgot them. Not everything, Farouk had to leave something behind or it would have been suspicious, but he took away so much. When Dad died, when they wouldn’t let him go to the funeral, David thought— He thought a lot of terrible things, but he mostly thought it didn’t matter because they’d never been that close anyway. 

“No, David, that’s not—“ Child Amy is back, older now, with braids and skinned knees. She sits down on the grass with him. “I didn’t know what you were. But they must have. They told me never to say anything about the strange things that happened. They didn’t want anyone to find out you were a mutant. I think they were afraid of what would happen.”

“They had reason to be afraid,” Ptonomy says, his voice drifting over. “Even beyond protecting you from Farouk. Division 3 was actively searching for mutant children. If they’d found you, you would have been killed or forced into becoming their weapon. Especially given how powerful you were at such a young age. Your adoptive parents couldn’t even risk telling their own daughter the truth about you.”

“They were trying to protect me,” David realizes. They didn’t know about his parasite, they didn’t know Farouk had already found him. They were trying to keep him safe from another threat, from the military arm of the world governments that wanted to destroy mutantkind and had no morals against abducting and brainwashing mutant children and forcing them to slaughter their own kind. 

That’s what Division 3 is. That’s the organization he talked his friends into joining so they could stop Farouk. God, he really had no idea about the war he found himself in the middle of. He just wanted everyone to stop trying to kill each other. He wanted to do something good with all the power he suddenly found himself with. 

He’s such an idiot. He made them join Division 3. This place nearly destroyed them and it’s his fault. 

“You didn’t make us do anything,” Ptonomy says. “You’re right that you had no idea what you were doing when you tried to negotiate with Division 3. But you stopped the killing. And once you were gone, we made the choice to come here, to take the opportunity you gave us to change Division 3 into something better. We did a lot of good while we searched for you. Don’t take away our choice because you can’t forgive yourself.”

That’s all too much for David to process. He tries to focus on what’s happening right now, on the false memories Farouk created for him after he took away the real ones. Farouk must have had to take away so much that David wouldn’t have been able to remember anything at all, but if he didn’t remember anything he would have tried harder to understand his own past. 

So Farouk left behind the normal things. He left behind Amy and the love of his family. He built David just enough false memories to be believable, using just enough truth for him to swallow all of it without question. 

When did he forget? When was he changed so completely?

“When we were in college,” Divad says. “But we’ll get to that later. Do you remember any of what Farouk did to you before you made us?”

“No.” David shakes his head. He’s known about Farouk for weeks but there’s still nothing. Just like Benny, but— He was wrong, before, thinking of the missing memories like black holes. His whole mind is a black hole. He barely exists at all, he’s just this paper-thin mockery of a person that Farouk—

That Farouk made. This person he is now, he didn’t make himself, he didn’t sew himself together out of scraps and cotton thread. Farouk took away almost everything he was and then picked through the scraps and built something new to play with. 

How could they ever— How are they ever going to find anything inside him that’s real?

“We’re not gonna let you float away,” Dvd says, sitting beside him on the grass. “We’re not gonna let that shit beetle hurt you again. And that’s— It’s bullshit, okay? Even if you don’t remember, it’s bullshit, because you’re still you, David. I would know. He left Amy whole to torture you, right? Well he left me whole to torture me. He made sure I’d remember. So I remember who you were and you grew up, you changed, you forgot. But you never stopped being you.”

It’s the most eloquent thing David’s ever heard Dvd say. And Dvd is looking at him so— There’s no defensive anger in his eyes, no sarcasm in his voice. He’s just—

He’s telling the truth. It’s not enough to make David believe, but Dvd’s telling the truth as much as he knows it. It’s not enough but— It helps. It does help. 

“Aww, c’mere,” Dvd says, and hugs him. 

David freezes, surprised. Dvd’s never— Neither of his alters have been very— Most of the time he’s known them, they haven’t been able to touch him, much less—

Dvd hugs him tighter. “Just because you don’t remember how we work, that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna hug you. Syd's right, you need hugs.”

David swallows. "I thought you hated Syd."

"Eh," Dvd says, noncommittally. "We need all the help we can get. I'll be mad at her again when you're better. Now hug me back already."

David tentatively hugs him back. This is all very, very strange, everyone knowing so much more of his life than him, his relationships being different and having relationships he doesn't remember at all. He wasn't sure what he expected to find but it wasn't this, it wasn't this entire other existence that he barely feels any connection to at all. He feels even less real than he did when they started this, and he wouldn't have thought that was possible.

Dvd pulls back, lets him go.

"I think we should stop," Divad says. "Just for now."

"What?" David says, alarmed. "No, we-- we can't. We haven't even--"

"I agree," Ptonomy says. "David, finding out all of this-- If we keep going, we risk hurting you, setting you back. We have to take this slow."

"No," David insists. "I need-- We have to find the memory, the-- The good memory. So I can have continuity. We have to find it." He can't get better if he doesn't know who he is.

Divad crouches down to meet his eyes. "David, this is only going to get harder. When you were this young, Farouk was already hurting you, draining you, but he wasn't-- He hadn't broken your mind yet. He wasn't strong enough to do that. He was still-- He had to recover from being forced out of his body."

There's something else. There's something else that Divad doesn't want him to realize yet. Something he realized when he was a little older, maybe before he created the alters, maybe after.

Oh god.

"I didn't just know about my powers," David realizes. "I knew there was a monster."

Divad gives a resigned nod.

The invisible war. It wasn't invisible, not then. He knew about his powers. He knew he was being tortured by something alien, by some creature living inside him. He couldn't have known what it was, who it was, but he knew it was there. He must have tried to tell someone. He must have tried to tell his parents. They knew he was a mutant, they knew about Farouk, they must have known--

They must have known. How could they have-- How could they have just--

"They didn't know," Dvd insists. "By the time we came and we realized what was happening to us, the monster had already made sure that no one would believe us. He made everyone think we were crazy so no matter what we said, no one would help us."

"David, I'm so sorry," child Amy says. "If I had known about your powers-- I wish Mom and Dad had told me. But you talked to people that weren't there. You saw things that weren't there. You forgot things and got confused, you were upset all the time, you said you were being controlled, that something was inside you, hurting you. We just thought-- The doctors thought--"

That he was schizophrenic. His parents knew he was a mutant and thought that he was schizophrenic. Farouk really was his schizophrenia after all.

He doesn't remember telling people he was being controlled. He doesn't remember that at all.

"Yeah, we are definitely done," Divad says, firmly. "Come on, David. Let's go back."

"No," David refuses. They can't quit now. They have to find something real, he needs something real from his own memory. He needs proof that he isn't just something Farouk created like a false memory, to paper over the gaping emptiness that is his mind.

He knew it, he knew this was going to happen, that looking into himself would only make things worse. There’s probably nothing to find. Farouk doesn’t want him to have anything good, and he’s never been able to stop Farouk from getting what he wanted. God, why did he even think he could try to get better? It was never going to work.

He just--

He just wants--

"Stop it," Dvd says, cutting off the thought. "Just stop it. Divad's right, we need to go back so you can rest. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to say that he's right? No, you don't, because you don't remember us. And you know what? You're right, too. It's not okay. It's awful. It's been awful for years and I thought it would be better once you could finally hear us and see us but it's actually worse."

"Dvd," Divad says, concerned.

"Shut up, I'm not done," Dvd says. "David, he tortured us. He tortured _us_ , do you understand? You don't remember and you shouldn't ever remember but I remember more of it than even Divad does. And it was--" He closes his mouth tight, closes his eyes, tenses up so tight and then lets it go. "None of this is gonna be fixed with one memory. It's just not. Because I have all the memories and it's still awful." He reaches out and holds David's arms. "We'll find a good one, okay? We will find a good one. But we're finding it so it will help you get better. If we hurt you finding it, then this whole thing is pointless and we should just take off the crown so you can go back in time and kill everyone."

David freezes.

"That's what you were thinking, you know we heard it," Dvd says. "Everyone heard it. You think that's the answer? It's not enough for you to kill yourself, you want to kill everyone else, too?"

"No!" David protests, he just--

"If we could never have existed," Dvd says. "If we could spare you all of this. If you never had to make us because someone kept you safe, that would be okay by us. But that's not a decision we get to make for the world. We thought we should make Syd forget and look what happened. We can't make the world forget without— Without it being seven billion times worse."

"But-- But Syd, Future Syd--"

"Excuse me?" Dvd says, outraged. "I might not be mad at Syd right now, but if we ever see that bitch's face again I'm going to use our body to smash her head in with a rock! She is not a good example of how to save the world, you get me?" He looks up at the sky. "Unbelievable." He looks back at David. "Now get us out of this place before I do it myself."

David opens his eyes. He's back in Cary's lab, back in the chair. Divad and Dvd slump in their chairs, both in their own versions of overwhelming relief.

Maybe-- Maybe it's a good thing he has to wear the crown. David doesn't think he's capable of making any kind of decision right now, much less a good one.

"I'm glad you realized that," Ptonomy says, sounding relieved himself. "That was a lot for you, learning about your past. Give it time to settle. Talk to Amy, when you're up to it. Let her tell you what she can about who you used to be. When you're ready, we'll do more memory work, but Dvd's right. There's no point in doing this if it makes you worse. We have to take it one step at a time. If you keep pushing yourself, you'll end up just like that lamp, and we'll have to work even harder to put all the pieces back together just to get you back to where you are now. I don't think you want that."

David thinks of his lamp and all the tiny pieces he had to find. He never did find all of them. There were holes in the rocket when he taped it back together, gaps like missing teeth. Like black holes, lacunas; information destroyed, never to be found again. 

"No," he agrees. He's lost so much, he must have lost a little more of himself each time he was broken. He doesn't want to lose anything else. He can't afford to.


	25. Day 6: He's just not very steady on his feet.

David sits by the window. 

He was sitting by the window alone, but then Matilda walked up and jumped into his lap. He’s a cat bed of pain so he lets her do what she wants. He pets her and keeps petting her and she rumbles against him like purring is going out of style and she has to get it all done now.

And then Kerry came over with a second chair and a stack of magazines. She hasn’t said much. She just keeps him company and flips through the magazines. She seems to be— If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was lost in thought. She doesn’t seem upset, though, so he doesn’t ask. He’s not really up to asking. 

To his relief, Syd hasn’t come over. She’s at the table bent over her psychology book. She’s still highlighting things and now she’s making notes in the margins. He really, really doesn’t want to see them. He used to try to look at his patient files and his therapists' notes, but seeing how crazy they thought he was only made him crazier. 

Or at least that’s what he remembers. 

It’s a lot, what he learned during the memory work. It’s really close to being too much. He should have stopped the first time they told him to stop, after he learned he’d always known about his powers, but he kept going anyway. He never understood why Ptonomy’s sessions and the old memory walks were so short, why they didn’t pick up again right away after being interrupted by Dvd or Farouk. But yeah, he gets it now. 

There’s only so much someone like him can take at once. 

Even with Divad’s help, David’s still been trying to do what he always does, which is to close his eyes tight and run as fast as he can until he gets to the other side. 

He can’t. He would have run into so many walls by now if he didn’t have people constantly pulling him aside. He would have run right off of so many cliffs if he didn’t have his alters watching and waiting to pull him back to safety. If there is an other side to all of this, it’s too far to run and it’s too dangerous. It’s a minefield, one he can’t even walk through without blowing himself up. He has to take one careful step at a time, with everyone checking to make sure there’s nothing explosive hiding under the dirt because there probably is, and if there is they have to defuse it before he puts his foot all the way down. 

It's bad enough that Farouk broke him however many times he broke him. David doesn't want to break himself. That's probably a good thing, that he's thinking that now, because before now he really, really wasn't thinking that.

He doesn't want to end the world. But he would also like to not end. Even if the need to end is still perilously close to the path he's taking, one slow, careful step at a time, he doesn't want to step on that landmine again. He doesn't. He keeps putting his foot over it but he hasn't put it all the way down, and he wants to just-- Not. To not put his foot down. To put it down somewhere else, on ground that won't explode under his weight.

He's trying. He really is trying to step anywhere else, to step somewhere safe. He's just not very steady on his feet.

Divad and Dvd are letting him rest, but they haven't vanished. They seem to be-- intentionally not vanishing. They're each sitting on one of the cots right now and they're playing cards. If David was feeling uncharitable, he would say they're doing it on purpose to remind him that they're real people and not just figments of his imagination. But they deserve better than his uncharitable thoughts. 

They—

They—

Cary is busy doing Cary things. Oliver is astral projecting to look for Melanie again. At least while he's gone, David's thoughts aren't being constantly relayed into the mainframe. He's down to only three people listening in on his thoughts at all times, which these days is a luxurious amount of privacy.

The Vermillion is sitting at the table with Syd, but nobody's home. Ptonomy and Lenny and Amy are doing whatever it is they do in the mainframe. He hopes it's nice in there. He has no idea, but everyone seems okay. Not that he would know if it wasn't, even without the crown, because it's impenetrable to telepathic intrusion. Part of him wishes he could just upload himself. It's the one place he'd finally be safe from Farouk.

Across the room, Divad and Dvd pause, Divad's raised hand gone still mid-discard.

 _Yeah, I know_ , David sighs to them. There he goes again with his unsteady feet. And he wasn't even trying to walk anywhere.

David decides to think about something else, and Divad finishes putting down his card.

David knows he should have stopped, in the white room. He should have let them stop him. But he needs to know the truth about himself, even if the truth is— 

Even if—

Even if he is David, the same David who loved his blue rocket lamp-- Even if he's the same, continuous identity--

He doesn't remember that life. He doesn't remember it beyond the bits and pieces Farouk left for him to keep. He doesn't remember being anything but a normal little boy who loved his sister and his parents. He doesn't remember knowing about his powers and using them. He doesn't remember being some kind of refugee hidden from the world, mentally unstable because of the parasite in his head even before his mind split into three. He doesn't remember his parents protecting him from Division 3. He doesn't remember knowing there was a monster inside of him, hurting him, and he doesn't remember asking for help getting it out.

Whatever memories are hidden inside him, whatever Farouk left behind or David made himself forget, he can't remember them and he probably never will. It's all just gone, like Benny is gone. It's never coming back.

There are things he's lost that he'll never get back.

He's been telling himself that for days, but this is-- It's so much. It's so much to lose, and he lost all of it. 

He doesn't know if he should-- Should he mourn that David? Should he be grieving the loss of himself? Divad and Dvd keep telling him that despite everything he's forgotten and endured, he's still the same person, but he can't-- He can't see any connection between that David and the David he is now, whoever that David is. He has nothing to sew them together beyond a broken rocket lamp and Amy's love, and he doesn't have the lamp and his sister is--

Alive. Dead. A digital ghost. A bunch of ones and zeros on a hard drive. 

His whole life is such a swirling existential nightmare. 

Okay. Okay. This is-- He's doing the work of getting better. Ptonomy said it would be hard. It's just really, really, really hard. A lot harder than other people keeping him alive was and continues to be, and that hasn’t been easy at all. 

He glances at the Vermillion again. Ptonomy said he should talk to Amy when he’s ready and learn more about the David-that-was. 

He wants to. He needs to. He will. He’s just— he doesn’t feel ready yet. He’s still— He’s had a shock, another shock, and he needs to rest. 

He needs to rest.

§

Kerry flips another page of the magazine she’s reading and frowns.

After she and Cary got all the food stuff figured out with their meal plan, Kerry asked him for something else to help her understand. It’s new, this need to understand herself and the world, and even newer is the need to understand how those two things fit together. 

Cary went out and came back with a stack of magazines. All different ones, ones about science and medicine, which she’s familiar with because Cary reads them. But also ones about other things: about food and people and news and sports. 

"See what interests you," Cary told her, and gave her a notebook and a pen, just like the ones he gave to David. "I think you’ll have a great deal of questions but don’t worry about them. Just write them down and we’ll go through them all together."

So that’s what she’s been doing while she keeps David company and keeps an eye on him. She’s been reading and coming up with questions and writing them down. She keeps coming up with more questions, and questions about those questions, and even questions about the questions about the questions. 

The world is— Bewildering. 

She remembers Cary teaching her that word, like he taught her most of her words. He made games out of it to keep it interesting, to keep her speaking instead of thinking. List the names of all the states containing the letter N. List every adjective that describes an emotional state. List all the medications that have side effects involving imbalance of the inner ear. 

But knowing all the words isn’t helping her understand any of this. 

She thought the sports magazines might make sense because she likes fighting and she understands fighting, but— The sports magazines aren’t about fighting at all. They’re about teams and statistics, which she understands some of, but they’re mostly about specific people she doesn’t know, and everyone cares about every little thing about them but also they don’t care about them at all. They just care if the specific people will manage to do one specific thing by a specific time, and everyone wants a different specific thing. It's rude and exhausting. 

The food magazines made a little more sense now that she knows about food plans. There were lots of glossy photos of things she wants to try eating eventually because they look really good. The recipes were long and full of confusing instructions like ‘salt to taste.’ But they were also full of advice about what to eat and not eat and most of it didn’t even agree with itself, much less with what Cary told her when they made the meal plan. She wrote down all her questions but she didn’t like how they made her confused again about something she had just figured out. 

The magazines about the world and countries and politics were just— she didn’t even try to understand any of those, she just wrote down pages and pages of questions, like David’s pages and pages of his name and the word NO. 

At least all of this writing is giving her a reason to practice writing. She has to write carefully because she’s never had much need to write even after Cary made her learn. But she needs to because one day he’s gonna die. Even if she isn’t alone, she needs to be able to do all the things he’s always done for her, so she needs to practice writing. She need to understand the world so she can be in it the way Cary is in it, the way all their friends are. 

She’s reading one of the magazines about people now, and it’s— It’s so bewildering that she can barely even come up with questions to write down. 

"I don’t understand any of this," she declares, frustrated. 

David looks over, startled from whatever he’s been thinking about all this time. "Any of what?"

She hands him the magazine. "Cary gave me these to read. I’m supposed to write down what I don’t understand, but it doesn’t even make enough sense to ask questions about."

David flips through the magazine. "I used to read this in Clockworks. They have a good crossword. And sudoku, but I usually couldn’t solve that."

"I don’t care about the puzzles," Kerry says. "It’s all the other stuff."

David flips back to the beginning and reads the table of contents. "Relationship advice, beauty tips, celebrity gossip? Yeah, I can see why it’s not your thing. It wasn’t really my thing but—" He shrugs. "I learned a lot about makeup. Sometimes I thought it would be nice to do that for a living: help people feel pretty. Help them feel good about themselves, I don’t know."

"That’s not what that stuff is about at all," Kerry protests. "It’s all just— It’s mean, it’s all mean and ugly."

David frowns at the magazine, then at her. "It is?"

"Yes," she insists. "Everything’s—" She huffs, trying to finds the right words. "The whole thing is about how you’re ugly if you don’t do what they tell you to do. But they’re the ugly ones, whoever wrote that. It’s mean and ugly and I hate it. And they’re all like that, even the ones about science."

She grabs the other magazines and shoves them into his hands, startling Matilda out of his lap. Matilda gives herself an affronted shake and walks over to Syd and meows for food. 

David looks at the other magazines. "Well, that’s—" He thinks. "I guess you’re right."

"I am?" Kerry didn’t expect to be right. She thought she was misunderstanding things again. "But that’s stupid."

"Yeah," David agrees, and gives a resigned shrug. "The world’s— It is ugly, a lot of it. And this is all— It’s advertising."

Kerry frowns. How had Cary described advertising? "That’s how everyone knows there’s something they can buy. How they know what it's for."

David scrunches his face. "Some of it. Most of it just tries to make you feel like you have to buy what they're selling. It’s like— emotional blackmail. Drink this beer or no one will love you."

Kerry hasn’t tried beer, and she doesn’t like someone telling her she has to drink it. "Cary loves me no matter what I drink."

"That's how it should be. No one should care what anyone drinks. I don’t think anyone does, really, except the people selling the drink. They just want our money."

Ugh, money. She’s going to have to learn about money, too. "The world is stupid," she declares. "There’s no way it’s worth all this work if it’s full of people being mean."

"I’m probably not the best person to argue against that," David says, "since I’ve spent the past week trying to leave the world. But that’s not the world’s fault, it’s mine."

"It’s completely the world’s fault," Kerry says. "I’ve been listening. That’s what Ptonomy and Syd and everyone keeps telling you. No wonder you’re so sick if you spent all those years in the hospital reading advertising." She says the last word like Dvd says ‘shit beetle.’

David takes a breath, then closes his eyes. "Advertising didn’t torture me. Well, okay, maybe it is a kind of torture, but— Just because there’s terrible things in the world, that doesn’t mean it’s— You can’t just throw the good out with the bad. Or you can, but— It’s— It’s not something you should do."

He goes silent and frowns. 

When he keeps staying silent and frowning, she takes back the magazines. That makes him open his eyes and look at her again. 

"I'm not throwing out anything," Kerry says. "This is-- I'm-- It's something I have to do. Like eating. I have to understand the world so I can understand myself."

David gives a panicky laugh. "I'm really the wrong person to be having this conversation with. I thought I understood a lot of things and-- And I was as wrong as it’s physically possible to be. Just completely-- And I don't-- I can't even remember anything to understand it. So you should probably talk to Syd, or Cary, or-- or anyone but me."

"I'm already talking to Cary about it," Kerry says. "He gave me all this stuff to read and told me write down all my questions. And I am, but--" But what? Cary should be enough. Cary's always been enough. But-- 

"But Cary's not enough," she realizes, as she says it. "I want to talk to you about it."

"I can't help anyone," David says, bleakly.

"You're helping me," Kerry tells him, because he is. He already has, a lot, and he can't see it even if she can. But David can't see a lot of things, even when people tell him about them over and over. So she has to tell him and be really clear about it so he can't misunderstand her. "You-- All the stuff I said to you about-- About how scary living is. You're the only one I ever said it to. Not Cary, not Melanie, not anyone. Because no one ever-- I never saw anyone who felt what I feel. But you do."

Maybe there are other people who feel what she feels. Maybe there always have been. But she couldn't see them the way she saw David. She had to get right up close to him to keep him safe and once she did, she couldn't look away. David doesn't hide how he feels the way everyone else does. He shows everything, he screams his pain so loud that even she could hear it. 

She doesn't need to hear his thoughts like Divad and Dvd and Ptonomy. She just looks at him and she knows, like she knows when Dvd or Divad are controlling his body and not David.

"You shouldn't--" David says, looking at her with those pain-filled eyes. "You shouldn't feel the way I do."

"Well, it's not up to you," Kerry tells him. "And it's not-- I don't want to die. I’ve never wanted to die. But-- I've been scared for a long time and I didn't know it. I thought I had everything figured out and I don't know anything. I don't have someone else inside me but I have me inside me and I don't know who I am, like you don't know who you are. And nobody did that to me because I did all of it to myself, like you keep hurting yourself even when we're all just trying to keep you safe. And-- And I only know any of that because you showed me. So don't tell me you can't help anyone because you're helping me."

David stares at her like he stared at her two days ago when she told him this before, like he's starving for every word. But David needs to be told things over and over, so she'll just have to keep telling him over and over until he really listens. Until he doesn't just look at her words like they're a glossy photo of a cake in some magazine, but puts the actual word cake into his actual mouth and chews and swallows and lets it into his throat and lets it sit in his stomach so his body can actually use it.

Except he shouldn't eat any cake, not for a while. He needs nutritious food so he can get better. He needs-- He needs nutritious words, too. Nutritious ideas, so his mind can digest them and use them to make itself strong.

"Oh," David says. "That's-- Um."

She can see that he still doesn't understand. He still can't let her words go into his throat. But it took her a while to force herself to eat even when she was so hungry she thought she might die. Cary had to drag her to the cafeteria and force her to eat shaomai, and she hated eating them so much. But it got easier, chewing and swallowing and all the rest of it. It got easier and now she only has to force herself a little. There are even things she likes eating, like cream soda. And eggs are okay, because she doesn't have to chew them much.

They all have to keep giving him nutritious ideas, like Cary kept giving her food. He's hungry for them, she can see that. He just doesn't know how to eat them. Cary said David doesn't know how to eat, that he doesn't know how to take care of himself because he's been sick and because people hurt him, and it's hard to take care of yourself when you're in pain. 

"We're gonna get better together," she tells him, confidently. "Both of us. But also everyone, because we're all complicated people who need support. That's how this works. We help you and you help us, and everyone helps each other until everyone's better. Okay?"

She waits for David to answer.

"Um, okay," David says, and now he's the one who's bewildered.

That's okay, she doesn't mind. Every time she helps him, she helps herself get better, too.

She pulls the magazine about people out of the stack and hands it to him. "You said you like the crossword?"

"Uh, yes," David says. He opens the magazine and finds the puzzle page. He looks around. "I need a pen."

Kerry hands him hers. She's written down enough questions for now. Maybe it's David's turn to write and her turn to look out the window and think about things. She likes that idea. It feels very nutritious.


	26. Day 6: He didn't think he'd ever be outside again.

Oliver is back and so is the relay. 

Ptonomy and Cary have both tried to convince him to stop looking for Melanie until they can come up with some kind of plan, but the best they could do was to get him to agree to not stay away too long. David doesn't think Oliver cares whether or not he gets stuck on the astral plane again, since that's where Melanie is, lost somewhere among billions of subconscious minds. But for some reason, Oliver is willing to come back to his body to help David. Because they need him present in the lab to help David get better. 

David thinks that Oliver shouldn’t waste his time.

Not that he wants Oliver to get stuck. David got enough of a taste of that to never want it again for himself, much less anyone else. If he’s the excuse they need to keep Oliver alive and present and eating, so be it. At least that’s something good he can do for someone, even if all he’s doing is being hopelessly lost to keep someone else from being hopelessly lost. 

Apparently that’s what he’s good for now, from what Kerry said. Showing everyone else what suffering is so they can suffer less themselves. He doesn’t know what he feels about that. He doesn’t know what he should feel. 

Mostly he just feels numb. The more he rests to recover from the memory work, the more numb he feels. 

Cary and Kerry come back with dinner, and everyone comes together. There aren’t enough seats around the table, not for all of them, so they bring over two more chairs and make room anyway. 

The two chairs are for Divad and Dvd, who can’t be heard by half the room, can’t be seen by anyone but David, and can’t be touched by anyone but each other. 

David understood giving them seats for the group therapy. It’s his therapy and he’s the one hallucinating them. But this is just— Insane. 

He doesn’t say anything, and no one bothers to reply to his thoughts. He already knows what they’d say to him, because it’s the same thing they keep telling him. Divad and Dvd are real people and they all need to treat them like real people, even if they’re not visible or tangible. 

He doesn't want to go over it again. He doesn't want to talk about anything. He lets the conversation flow around him and eats what he's given, like he always does.

"David. David. _David_."

David looks up. It's Ptonomy's voice coming out of the Vermillion.

"Do you feel like talking to Amy yet? Or Lenny? They’d both like to talk to you."

Amy.

Lenny.

"No," he says, shaking his head. He can't-- He can't talk to them, either of them. He can't face them without-- 

He can't.

"Amy really wants to talk to you," Ptonomy urges, gently. "She wants to help you."

David looks back down at his plate. Did he eat all that already? Apparently he did.

"No," he says again, because that's all he has the strength to say.

Maybe he should just ask Divad to make him sleep again. Maybe he should ask to sleep and never wake up, like Oliver wants to do.

"Perhaps you should take a walk, get some fresh air," Oliver replies.

"I can't," David says. "I'm not allowed to leave the lab."

"We never said that," Cary says. "You're not a prisoner anymore, David. You haven't been since we brought you out of that cell."

David looks up again, startled. "I'm-- I'm not?"

"Of course not," Cary insists. "You've just been in such a terrible state, and us all being together here is the best way to take care of you and each other. You shouldn't go anywhere alone, of course. But as long as at least one of us is with you, we can take you anywhere in Division 3."

"How about the rooftop garden?" Kerry suggests. "I was just there with Cary. It's pretty nice. We can all go."

David can't get over the fact that he's not a prisoner. "Maybe you shouldn't let me up there," he says, hearing the shock in his own voice. "I might throw myself over the side." Like the monk. God, he forgot about the monk. 

"Don't joke about that," Kerry says, sternly. "And anyway you're not gonna do that. You wouldn't do that to us, right?"

It takes David a while to answer, but he does. "No. No, I wouldn't."

“Then it’s settled,” Oliver declares. “White mist in old October, over the billion trees of Bronx, sunset red. While I’m here, I’ll do the work to ease the pain of living.”

§

The garden is lovely and full of flowers.

It's getting late, so the day is cooling down, but the sun is still above the horizon and the concrete benches hold on to the heat they absorbed from being baked all day. The sounds of the city rise up from all around, but there’s not many trees and definitely no mist.

The last time David sat in a garden was after Ptonomy told him about La Désolé. He'd gone outside of Division 3 to think and talk to the voices in his head so they could help him figure out what to do. And then he went to Cary's lab and they helped him make their plan.

It feels like a lifetime ago. It was only days. Only a week and a half, with all that wandering in the desert. So little time for his whole life to change, and somehow not to change at all. But that's been the story of his life for all of this madness, for everything since Clockworks. Everything changing and changing, so much change he can't keep up, and then somehow at the end of it nothing has changed at all.

He didn't think-- 

He didn't think he'd ever be outside again. 

Clockworks never let him outside. They had a garden, but it wasn't-- It wasn't real. It was just another cruel joke, all those fake plants pretending to be something alive, something that could sustain life by making the air sweet and pure. A real garden was just another thing he wasn't allowed to have, like fresh air and sunshine and--

He remembers loving his mother's garden. He doesn't know if he really did, if Farouk made him think he did. But he remembers it. The soil under his hands, under his nails. The tomato plants all in rows. Watering them so they would grow and thrive. The burst of cherry tomatoes in his mouth in the heat of summer, sweet and tart and juicy.

He remembers being loved. But that wasn't real either. Nothing was real, none of it.

What did Philly say to him? He didn't have a past. There was no evidence of his past, no photos, no favorite toys, no keepsakes. She couldn't have known but she did. She knew the truth even though she barely knew him at all. The flimsy lie that Farouk constructed was obvious to everyone but himself.

He's just paper-thin, covering over the absence of who he used to be. Who David used to be, whoever David was. 

He looks at the railing around the garden wall. He thinks about the monk, running too fast to be stopped. Falling, falling, and then— That terrible sound, and far down below, his body. His head was full of madness, too. Contagious madness, chattering teeth, mazes, memories of bodies hanging like rotten fruit in the monastery. Everyone seeking oblivion, negation, so much death at every turn.

David takes a breath, lets it out. He needs to keep his feet steady. He went too fast today, and now he needs to go slow or he’s going to put his foot down, all the way down in the wrong place.

He tries to look away from the railing. He tries. He’s trying.

Oliver is talking to Cary, saying something about luggage. He focuses on that. There are bees dipping into the flowers. He focuses on that. Real bees. Real flowers. A real garden, outside, where he’s sitting.

He shouldn’t fall apart from something so small. He has to get better. He’ll never get better if he keeps falling apart. 

Someone takes his hand, holds it. Kerry. He grips it back tightly, too tightly, but she’s strong. She’s a mutant, like him.

“We can come out here whenever you want,” she tells him. “Just the two of us. Well. And Divad and Dvd. The four of us.”

She’s been so kind to him. They barely talked before Division 3 imprisoned him and now he doesn’t think he could stay alive without her. She’s the only one who somehow makes him feel just a tiny, tiny bit normal. She gave him a crossword puzzle. She kept him company for hours today. She told him that she feels the same things he feels. She shouldn’t feel what he feels, no one should feel what he feels. But she said she feels it anyway.

They were talking about her magazines. Cary gave them to her to learn about the world. And she said— What did she say? She said if the world was so mean, it couldn’t be worth the work. And maybe it’s not, but—

If he jumped, he wouldn’t be able to sit in the garden, and he only just found out that he could. He wouldn’t be able to hold her hand and feel—

Loved. She makes him feel loved. 

Him. Not-- Not whoever he used to be. Not the David-that-was. Not even the David of two weeks ago, when he was still deluding himself that he could be a hero or even just a person. She came to him when he was at his lowest and she hasn't gone away, even though he all he's done is fall apart and fall lower. And now she's holding his hand.

She shouldn't. He's not worth the work she's putting in, not worth the quarters she's poured into his broken head. But he doesn't want to let go and he doesn't want her to let go of him.

She doesn't make him talk. She just keeps him company and holds his hand while the sun sinks down and the sky turns brilliant red and orange. The others talk around them, a soothing chatter, and David holds Kerry's hand and stays alive.

§

When they get back to the lab, Clark is waiting for them.

David nearly walks right back out the door, but that would mean letting go of Kerry's hand and he doesn't want to. Kerry stands in front of him, protecting him, and he's grateful.

"I'm not here to drug you," Clark says, holding up his empty hands. "Ptonomy's in charge of your treatment. I'm just here to bring you this." There's a cardboard box on the counter beside him. He picks it up and holds it out.

Kerry takes it, letting go of David's hand. She looks at it suspiciously, then pulls open the flap and looks inside. Her posture relaxes. She turns to David and holds it out for him.

David looks inside. It's his blue rocket lamp.

He's almost afraid to touch it, but he reaches in and pulls it out.

It's been a year since he left it behind, but it's exactly same as he remembers. The shade is still bent out of shape, and the ceramic rocket is barely held together by the aging packing tape. He remembers fitting all the pieces of it together, remembers wrapping the tape around and around in a desperate attempt to make it whole because he didn't know where Amy kept her glue and he didn't want to wake her or Ben up to ask.

He remembers the lamp. It's real and he remembers it so much. He's had it since before he can remember anything and he kept it in his bedroom until the day he packed it away because he didn't want to risk bringing it to college where someone might break it.

He broke it anyway, when he got out of Clockworks. But then he tried to fix it. He couldn't fix it, but he did what he could. And now it's here and he's making a new memory of it. A new, clear, untouched memory, almost painfully vivid. He picked it up and held it and now he remembers picking it up and holding it.

"Thank you," David says, distantly. He didn't think he would ever thank Clark for anything after Clark drugged him. But he's thankful for this.

He expects Clark to leave now that he's done making his delivery. He knows how much Clark is afraid of him, how he's always been afraid of him. Clark acts nice to David, to the others, but he doesn't mean it, not on the inside. They're mutants and he considers them all to be a threat to humanity. Powerful mutants like David especially. He doesn't like having to work with them, he doesn't like what they are, but he puts up with it because that's his job. David can't read his mind anymore, but there's no reason why Clark's thoughts aren't the same as they've always been.

But Clark doesn't leave. The kettle whistles and Clark walks over to it. "I was just making some tea, do you want some tea?"

David doesn't answer, but Clark puts teabags in two mugs and fills them with hot water. He carries them over to the table and puts them down.

David looks to the others in confusion, but they're not much help either. Except Syd.

"It's okay," she tells him.

David doesn't see how any of this is okay, but he's curious enough to sit down. He puts the lamp on the table and wraps his hands around the mug, warming them. It was chilly outside, after the sun went down.

Kerry sits down next to him. Clark doesn't offer her tea and she doesn't ask for any. She crosses her arms and waits.

"I want you to know that your treatment is a priority to Division 3," Clark says. "If there's anything you need to help you get better, like your lamp, then we'll provide it. You just have to ask."

David stares at him. "Let me go," he says, finally. He doesn't know if he means to let him leave or let him die. Maybe both.

"Except that," Clark says, and he sounds apologetic but it's probably a lie. All of this is probably more lies. Just because Clark found his lamp, it doesn't mean anything. If anyone would be thrilled that David wants to kill himself, it's probably Clark, considering how many times Clark has threatened him and outright tried to murder him.

Farouk only threatened to torture David's friends. Clark hardly qualifies as a friend. At best he's a-- A frenemy. No, not even that, because he's working with Farouk. Farouk was supposed to be the one on trial but instead David was, and Farouk was the one orchestrating the whole thing. David's been so busy trying to die and not die that he forgot about how he ended up here in the first place. Like how he forgot about the monk.

Well, he's not forgetting that ever again.

"You do remember that I can hear your thoughts, right?" Clark says. He taps the tech embedded in his ear.

Shit. David forgot that, too.

"You're right, I'm not your friend," Clark says. "And for obvious reasons I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"Then why--"

Clark picks up his mug, blows at the steaming water. He takes out the teabag and sets it aside. "Division 3 has been listening, which means I've been listening. We owe you an apology. Not for taking away your powers and forcing you into treatment. It's clear that we made the right call. But--" He makes a face. "We made mistakes. We've made mistakes with you before. It's clear that-- Things could have been handled without resorting to-- Cruder methods."

Cruder methods. Cruder methods! "Is that what you call abducting me and drugging me and trying to electrocute me in a swimming pool?!"

"The swimming pool was a bit much," Clark admits. “Your situation wasn’t what it appeared to be.”

That is an astonishing understatement.

"We didn't hurt you to be cruel," Clark tells him. "We hurt you because we believed you were a threat. You killed a fellow patient. You sealed the other patients into their rooms. We know that wasn't you now, but we didn't then. And--" He actually looks regretful, but David doesn't believe it. "It was before my time, but I'm sorry for what we did to you as a child."

"Division 3 never found me," David says. He can't remember one way or the other, but if Division 3 had tracked him down, they would have taken him, and his life would have been very, very different.

"We may be the reason your parents had to give you up," Clark says. "Regardless of Farouk. Our policies at the time were-- Aggressive. Extremely aggressive. The people who set those policies are gone, but that doesn't undo the actions they compelled."

It's all very polite, careful wording. David doesn't know what happened back then, but he can guess, if Division 3 was aggressively hunting for mutant children, if they were aggressive towards mutants generally. He knows enough about the atrocities humans have done to other humans to guess what humans did to mutants.

There are words for that. Genocide, for one. Until last year, Division 3 still wanted to wipe mutants off the face of the earth, and David doesn't care if they changed their policies from horrific to politely horrific.

"That's not our goal anymore," Clark says. "We have a new goal and new policies. Possibly too new. As an organization, we're used to being aggressive. We still need to be, in some cases. We applied force unilaterally. We're learning how to be selective."

Clark sips his tea while David takes that in.

"I don't know why you're telling me this," David says, struggling. "What, do you want me to accept your apology? Fuck your apology!"

"My son was adopted," Clark says, out of nowhere.

"I know," David says, because of course he knows. He's heard Clark thinking about his husband and his son plenty of times. Usually he thought about how much he missed them because he had to spend so much time at Division 3 to stop Farouk and protect the world.

"Most people, when they adopt, they ask for a baby. Something cute and moldable, so they can pretend it's really their own. We asked for an older kid. A kid no one else wanted, who'd been hurt by the world and didn't know how to trust it. We did it because someone should give those kids a chance, and we have the resources to do that."

"So what?" David asks. Adopting one kid doesn't undo murdering however many mutants Clark has murdered, no matter how politely he murdered them.

"So if I could tell my kid that the reason his parents gave him up was because they were afraid for his life and needed to put him somewhere safe, I would. I can't do that. So I'm telling you."

David takes that in.

Clark takes one last sip of tea and stands, leaving the mug. "Good luck with your therapy. It sounds like you need it." He nods goodnight and then he's gone.

"You okay?" Kerry asks, putting a hand on his arm. "Clark's such a jerk."

Is he okay? No, he's not okay, not remotely. But not because of Clark. 

Before, Ptonomy said-- He said David gave them the opportunity to change Division 3 into something better. And apparently he did. He had no idea what he was doing and blindly fumbled his way through the whole thing, but somehow he did it anyway.

That's-- 

It's good. He did something good.

He didn't change Division 3 directly. He wasn't there for that. He missed the year Division 3 changed, like he missed the year Syd changed. But if he hadn't existed, if he hadn't put himself between Summerland and Division 3 and told them they all had to get better, a lot more people would have been dead when he came back at the end of that year. Maybe everyone would have been dead, given how badly Summerland was losing the war when they found him. Given how desperate Melanie was for his help.

He did something good for the world. He actually did.

"David?" Kerry says, concerned. She's looking at him like he's doing something strange.

He realizes that he is. He's smiling. He's-- He's happy. He forgot what it was like to smile and be happy. He can't even remember--

No, no. He's not going to overthink this. He's not going to ruin something so precious. He's just going to sit here and drink tea with his friends and be happy.


	27. Day 6: David fucking owes me a body.

Lenny’s getting real tired of waiting around in other people’s heads.

Okay, technically this time she’s in a computer, not someone’s head. But it sure feels like being back in David’s head when his thoughts and the thoughts and voices of the other two Davids are echoing around her, a torrent of David rushing through the data streams. 

She gets that they’re, like, other people? They sure don’t think or talk like David thinks and talks, and she’s hung out with him and inside of him long enough to be an expert on both. But they sure as hell still sound like David, and Lenny’s had her fill of ambiguity.

It’s not like it matters what she thinks about them anyway. She’s barely even talked to David, much less Divad or Dvd. It’s been a whole day since she helped him out of his freakout, and he hasn’t asked for her.

To be fair, David is clearly dealing with some shit. Like, some _shit_. She hasn’t seen him this bad in years, and she watched the highlight reel with Amy, she knows he was even worse before they pulled her out of her cell and killed her. He was worse than his worst. He sure wanted to die in Clockworks — sometimes they all did — but he wasn’t, like, actively making the effort twenty-four seven.

Farouk raped him hard, is what she’s saying, and Lenny had a front row seat for the raping. For her own rape and for David’s and even for Syd’s, at least the first one. This whole thing is a hundred levels of fucked up that Lenny really does not want to think about. She wants to get as high as balls and stay there and shove her mouth into as much drugged-out pussy as she can. She wants the Caligula shit she got a taste of when she got out of this hellhole the first time.

That’s the thing. David’s dealing with some shit and she gets that, but she’s been dealing with some shit that’s a hundred levels of fucked up on top of that, and as usual no one cares.

David would probably care if he wasn’t busy trying to figure out if he even exists. But she was trying to exist when he visited her in Oliver’s head, and he ignored her like she didn’t shoot herself in the head and hang herself right in front of him, just because he didn’t think she was real. The ultimate cry for help, and he wasn't listening.

Fuck real. Real is goddamn overrated. She hasn’t been real for over a year but does she care? Not a goddamn bit. She doesn’t need to be babysat like Amy. She can take care of herself, and that’s exactly what she’d do if they’d just let her the hell out of here.

She wants David to get better. She doesn’t want him to kill himself. He’s her only friend, the only person who’s ever given a damn about her. It would be a tragic waste if she dragged herself through all that octopus-desert-giant-plug-bullshit life-saving just for him to throw himself away. But he hasn’t done a whole lot for her since the first time she died. He only busted her out of jail for his own sake. When she begged for his help, all he did was tie himself up in knots wondering if she was really herself when that’s the last thing that fucking mattered.

So yeah, she’s done. She done with all of this, with being stuck in other people’s heads and the wrong bodies and drawers and computers and all of it. David doesn’t need her anyway. He’s got loads of people helping him and she’s got nothing. She lost her body because his friends didn’t want him to have to deal with Amy being shoved up inside her. She doesn’t care that it used to be Amy’s body, it was her fucking body and she was using it!

The fact is David owes her. She saved his life twice and he didn't save hers even once. He owes her, so it's time she got what she's owed and got the hell out of this hellhole a second time, this time for good.

Lenny looks around the mainframe. Ptonomy is busy communing with a wall, surfing that information superhighway, and Amy is obsessively watching the video wall that’s showing Division 3's Davidcam, as usual. Nobody gives a shit about Lenny and right now that's just dandy. She presses herself against the wall beside her and reaches through the data streams until she finds the Vermillion that's sitting dormant in the lab.

After all the body-hopping she's done, controlling a robot is a breeze. Amy still hasn't figured out how to do much more than talk, and Ptonomy's only getting the hang of it after a week, but Lenny slips into it like it’s a suit. It's still weird as fuck because all the sensory inputs are wrong, but she's had weirder trips and come back for more. 

Everyone in the lab is asleep. They're all lined up together like they’re at a summer camp, or at least how she imagines summer camp: Cary and Kerry and Syd and David. And then there's Oliver, but he's not at home because she can't hear David's thoughts anymore. And Melanie, but she's just an empty body.

Hmm. Maybe she should take Melanie's body. Nobody's using it. She's probably all shrivelled up inside but it's better than nothing. Maybe Lenny should do what Farouk did and hop around until she finds something that fits her.

Ugh, maybe not. She might not be a good person, she might be owed a body, but she's not a monster like him. She's not gonna take someone else over. What she needs is her own body back, and if she can’t have that, she needs a new version of her old body. And there's only one person here who can give her that.

She creeps over to David's bed and gives him a shake.

"Psst, David," she whispers in his ear. "C'mon, man, wake up."

She gives him another shake, another, and he opens his eyes.

"Finally," Lenny sighs. David's always had trouble sleeping, probably from all those nightmares, but he sleeps like a rock here. "It's me, Lenny. We gotta talk."

"What's going on?" David asks.

"You gotta get me out of this mainframe," Lenny whispers. "Before, what I said, I was just-- I had to say everything was okay because they were watching. Division 3. They're evil. They killed me and it hurt, like, a lot. So you gotta get me out of here. You gotta make me a new body." When David doesn't say anything, she continues, impatient. "You owe me, man. I saved your life twice. Now you gotta save mine. You're god, right? So make me a body. Use your powers."

"I can't," David says, and points to the crown. "And even if I could, I wouldn't. Because you're lying to David."

Shit. _Shit._

"Which one are you?" Lenny asks, leaning back.

"Both," David says. "We've always shared everything. Ptonomy!"

In the mainframe, Lenny opens her eyes to see Ptonomy walking towards her, looking furious. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Lenny stays pressed against the wall. She's not letting go of the Vermillion, not until they make her. "I'm getting my body back and getting the hell out of here."

"That's not gonna happen," Ptonomy says. 

"What, you're arresting me again? Gonna throw me in another cell?"

"If I have to," Ptonomy warns. "But you're not getting out because none of us are getting out. Not until it's safe."

"Safe?" Lenny laughs. "Whatever, man, I don't care about safe. Farouk's done with me. None of you give a shit about me, you only stuck me in here because you had to get her out." She nods her head at Amy, who's caught between watching the Vermillion talk to David, and watching Lenny talk to Ptonomy. "You know what? I'll just take the robot."

"The Vermillion doesn't belong to you," Ptonomy warns. 

On the video, Syd and Kerry wake up, disturbed by the noise. Kerry shakes Cary awake and he puts on his glasses.

"It's Lenny," says David, or rather the Davids. "She lied to David and asked him to make her a body."

None of them are happy about that. Well, Lenny's not happy either. She switches back to the Vermillion so she can yell at them in person.

"Yeah, that's right," she tells them. "You chuckleheads killed me, so I'm getting my body back."

"You're really not," say the Davids.

"Let me talk to David," she demands.

"Why, so you can lie to him? So you can blackmail him into helping you? Not a chance."

"I wouldn't have to blackmail him if he would just help me!" Lenny says, angrily. "But I don't get helped because I'm not real. Well, fuck real! David's barely real and you're all helping him. Amy's a fucking ghost and you're helping her. But not me, right? Not the Cornflake Girl. You wanna help David because he tried to kill himself? Well, I blew my brains out and hung myself right in front of him, and what did he do? The fucker ignored me! I saved him and he just left me to rot and let Division 3 kill me. So David fucking owes me a body and you're gonna take that thing off his head so he can give it to me!"

Everyone stares at her in both planes of reality. 

"Whatever," she says, shoving her feelings back down where they belong. "I don't care how I get out of here, but I'm out. I'm done. You all have fun with your group therapy gangbang and I'm gonna go dive into a mountain of drugs and everybody will be happy. Dig me?"

"You think Farouk's done with you?" Ptonomy asks. "Well, think again. If David kills himself, Farouk will torture everyone David cares about for the rest of our lives. That includes you."

"David doesn't care about me," Lenny sneers. "I'm not real, remember?"

"You know that's not true," the Davids say. "David wanted to help you, but he was afraid you were just another trick. Farouk used you to hurt him, he didn't know what to do. And David didn't abandon you after the desert. We were going to come for you. But his friends-- our friends captured him so he could get the help he needs. He was a prisoner just like you until we made them bring him here so he can actually get better."

"I'm sorry for the way we treated you before," Ptonomy says. "We were just like David, we didn't know if you were just another trick meant to hurt him. And in our defense you were. But that doesn't make what we did right."

"I don't give a shit," Lenny sneers. "If you don't think I'm real, then let me leave. Lemme walk out of here and I promise you will never see me again."

"Oh, we know you're real now," Ptonomy says.

That makes Lenny pause. "What?"

"We scanned both you and Amy when we uploaded you. You're both clean."

Well, fuck.

She doesn't care if she's real or not. She exists, that's enough for her. But-- Okay, maybe she had her doubts. She was Farouk's puppet and he shoved her in a drawer when he didn't need her. And then he pulled her out and shoved her into Amy and sent her to David. Yeah, Lenny's not stupid, she knew something wasn't right about that. She knew she was being used. David even said he couldn't tell the difference between Farouk's thoughts and her thoughts.

And now, after all that? She's finally just Lenny again?

Shit. That's-- Shit.

"Fine, great, we'll throw a party," Lenny says. "I still want out."

"There is no out," Ptonomy says.

Lenny groans. "I can't get out of the mainframe, I can't escape Farouk. What am I supposed to do?"

"Help David get better," Syd says. "That's what we're doing. And we can help you, too, if you let us."

"Not a chance," Lenny says, rounding on Syd. "He owes me, remember? Besides, I don't need anyone else messing with my head. I just got it back."

"This isn't Clockworks," Syd says. "We--"

Lenny is so furious about that she almost loses control of the Vermillion. "Shut your goddamn face. You were there for a year and you were a white. You have no idea about the shit reds like me and David went through, none!"

"David was a yellow," Syd says.

"Only at the end," Lenny counters. "And they still treated him like a red. You don't know shit about Clockworks so don't you dare."

"We do," say the Davids. 

"What?" 

"We were there for all of it. All six years. Farouk wouldn't let us talk to David but we experienced everything he did. We know what you went through, both of you, because we went through it with you. We tried to protect David and you and everyone there, as much as we could."

"Protect how?" Lenny asks. She went through hell in that place, and she doesn't remember David ever doing much to help her, if only because he was going through hell right alongside her. Company was the most he could offer her, but in Clockworks that meant a lot. It meant everything.

"We couldn't stop all of them," the Davids say. "But we stopped the worst of them. The orderlies who-- Who hurt us. The ones who raped you, raped the other patients, tried to rape David. We made them pay and we made sure they never came back. But if we did too much, David paid the price. Solitary, sedation, straightjackets. They knew he was a threat, but they could never figure out how he did it. So we only hurt the ones we had to. We're sorry, we wish we could have done more."

Shit.

_Shit._

In the mainframe, Amy looks like she's about to faint. Good. She deserves worse for what she did to David, putting him in that place. She deserves worse than losing her body and being trapped in her own head. 

"That can't be true," Syd says, shakily.

"It's true," Lenny says. Shit, that explains so much. As bad as things were, as bad as some of the orderlies treated them, the really bad ones never stayed long. As soon as word started to get around, as soon as she warned David to be careful around an orderly, within a few days that orderly would have a really bad time and quit. If David got drugged and shoved into a padded room afterwards, she never made the connection because they did that to him at random anyway just for wearing red. And who would have thought David was capable of tying his shoes, much less taking out a rapist?

"Why do you think Farouk made Amy so mean in that fake Clockworks?" Lenny tells Syd, and savors the grief on Amy's face. "She put him there. Whatever happened to him in there, it was her fault. So he made her like them, the ones that hurt us."

"Yeah," the Davids agree, and then they turn to Lenny. "So don't be angry at David for not protecting you because we're part of David and we've protected you. If we'd known you were-- David wanted to believe you weren't just one of Farouk's tricks, but he couldn't. Not after what Farouk put him through looking like you. Not after what he did to you and Amy. David didn't believe you were real but he trusted you anyway, and he doesn't even trust himself. He doesn't know how. That's something else Farouk took away from us."

Lenny groans. "God, enough! You've made your point. You don't have to rub it in." Shit. Now she feels bad about trying to blackmail him. It's like kicking a puppy dog. She's not a good person but she's not the kind of monster that kicks puppies.

"Lenny, come back to the mainframe," Ptonomy says. 

"All right, all right," Lenny says. But before she does, she tells the Davids: "David never hears a single word of this, you get me?"

"Not a word," the Davids agree.

Lenny slips back out of the Vermillion and pushes off from the wall. 

Ptonomy is crouched next to Amy, who looks like she's been hit with a brick. Lenny has no sympathy.

"David thinks he deserved that place?" Amy asks, and breaks into sobs.

Ptonomy comforts her, hands her a box of tissues from out of thin air, and then stands up and walks over to Lenny. "We need to talk about David's treatment."

"Oh no," Lenny says. "I told you, I'm not spreading my legs for your therapy gangbang."

"And you don't have to," Ptonomy says. "But none of us are going anywhere and David has to get better. If you want to help us with that, you can. Or you can stay in the mainframe and wait this out. But I can't have you getting in our way."

Lenny's taken aback by his aggression. "Excuse me, did you not just hear all that? And fuck, why does David have to get better? The guy's been through enough. Just find somewhere quiet and green to put him and let him chill out for a while."

"We can't do that. We literally can't. If David stops getting better, it's extremely likely that Farouk will take matters into his own hands."

"Then stop him!" Lenny insists. "Break your stupid deal with him and tell him to go away. Why are you even letting him hang around?"

"Division 3 didn't understand what kind of monster Farouk is when we made the deal. Farouk was bad before, the head of a crime family with mental powers and an unkillable body. But when he lost his body, when he went into David-- We think the whole experience broke him. He's obsessed with David beyond all reason, he wants to use him to end the world. And right now we have no way to stop him. Division 3 had plans for a weapon to kill him but it was never built. It will take months or years to build it now and we don't have that time. The only one with enough power to stop Farouk is David."

"Then just take off the crown and let him kill him!"

"If we take off the crown, it's more likely that David will kill himself. And even if he doesn't, he's incredibly fragile and unstable. He's in no condition to go up against Farouk. Farouk will win again and he'll take David away and go back to torturing him until he breaks the way Farouk wants him to break. And then David will end the world."

Now Lenny's the one who feels like she was hit with a brick. 

"I'm telling both of you this because the three of us are part of the mainframe. That means our minds can't be read. It's up to us to find a way out of this, to save David so he can save the world and himself. The others can't know, especially David. If any of them hears any of this, Farouk will know immediately, and we'll lose David."

Lenny runs her hand through her hair. "Can't we upload David?"

"The mainframe isn't a long-term solution. If Farouk really wants to get to us, he'll find a way. He almost killed the Admiral once already. If we bring David in here, Farouk will stop at nothing to get to him. And killing David would mean losing our only weapon against Farouk." Ptonomy sighs. "We want David to get better because he deserves to be happy. But he has to get better because we need him to stop Farouk."

"That's fucked up," Lenny declares. 

"It's a fucked-up situation," Ptonomy admits. "We're facing off against an omniscient monster, but the only thing Farouk really cares about is David's pain. That's the one thing we have going for us. He's been back in his body for a week and all he does is sit and watch David suffer. He watches everyone else suffer, too, but that's just a bonus for him. So we need David to continue to suffer to keep Farouk happy."

Lenny gapes, horrified. Dvd was right, what he said in the highlight reel. "You really are torturing him for Farouk."

"We're walking a fine line," Ptonomy explains. "We need David to get better quickly, but getting better is incredibly painful for him, and that pain is exactly what Farouk wants. We have to be careful. We have to keep pushing David forward, but if we push him too hard, he'll break. If he breaks, Farouk might decide to just take David away. But if we don't push him hard enough, Farouk might decide to do that anyway."

"That's brutal."

"This is war," Ptonomy counters. "And the only way we're going to win is to outthink someone who can read everyone's minds. We can't play his game. We have to play our own game around his and let him think we're playing his."

Amy stands up and walks over, wiping her eyes. "So what happens when David gets better? What will Farouk do to him?"

"We have some breathing room," Ptonomy says. "But at some point he's going to start trying to define what better is for David. That's something we'll have to deal with when the time comes. That's why we need your help, both of you. Once Farouk starts trying to get his claws back into David, we'll be locked into a battle for David's soul. Either we help David get strong enough to kill the monster, or the monster breaks him again and turns him into a world-killer. Or David realizes what's happening and kills himself before Farouk can succeed, and we're all tortured for the rest of our lives."

"So no pressure," Lenny says.

"We can't let David know any of this," Ptonomy insists. "He needs to focus on getting better, on his therapy."

"His torture," Lenny counters.

"His therapy," Ptonomy says, firmly. "If you can't work with us, if you can't keep your mouth shut, the Admiral will lock you up in the mainframe and you won't speak to David again until this is over. Farouk is always watching and always listening. Division 3 is, too. But there are things Farouk can perceive that we can't, and vice versa. Everyone's staying together because that's the safest way to ensure none of us can be singled out. He's already attacked Syd twice and tried to convince her to give up on David. He's gone after her before because he knows she's a threat to him. He killed me, he killed Melanie, he took Oliver. He killed both of you because you're threats to him, too. He tried to use us to kill the Admiral but David stopped us. We're all threats to him because we can help David."

"So what?" Lenny asks. "You want us to pretend that everything is fine? That this is just David getting help?"

"This is David getting help. The Admiral believes that if David gets enough help, he can defeat Farouk. As powerful as Farouk is, David is-- He has the potential to be something more."

"Farouk's a god," Lenny says. 

"Farouk thinks he's a god," Ptonomy says. "He's convinced himself he is one. But that doesn't actually make him a god. He's just a very powerful mutant with mental powers and an invulnerable body."

That sounds like a god to Lenny. "So what's David?"

"That's what we're all going to find out together. Including David. So how about it? Do you want to help save the world again?"

It's not really much of a choice, but Lenny pretends to consider it. "Do I get another gun?"

"Probably not."

Well that's bullshit. "Ugh, fine. But once the monster's dead, you're getting me a body and I'm out of here."

"It's a deal."

"Ptonomy, I don't--" Amy says, voice strained. "I don't think I can do this. I can't hurt David."

"You can," Ptonomy says, evenly. "You already have."

Ouch. Lenny's no fan of Amy, but that was cold as ice.

"I'm sorry, but we can't afford any illusions about this or ourselves. Farouk uses the truth as his weapon. We need to face the truth so he can’t use it against us. The truth is that you have hurt David, and you did it because you were trying to help him get better. All we're asking is that you do it again, but this time because it will genuinely help him. This isn't us being cruel. We don't want David to suffer. This really is just therapy. He would have to go through all of this even without Farouk, but in an ideal world he would do it over years, even decades, with plenty of time to process what he’s been through. We don't have that kind of time. He has to get better as fast as he can, and that's going to hurt him and it's going to hurt us. Which is why it's exactly what Farouk wants us to do, which is why we have to do it so we can stop Farouk and take him out for good. The way David's father should have done over thirty years ago."

"Do you-- Do you know who his father is?" Amy asks. "Maybe he can help."

"We don't. But whoever he is, he didn't do the job right the first time, he abandoned his son and let him be tortured for thirty years and did nothing to stop it. He failed. We don't need him." Ptonomy puts a comforting hand on Amy's shoulder. "With all of us working together, I believe we can win. We just have to help David, really help him the way he should have been helped from the start. Can you do that for him? For all of us?"

Amy nods. "I can."

"Then welcome to Division 3. You're both officially employees."

"Uh, what the fuck?" Lenny says. "I'm not joining your evil army. Division 3 killed me!"

Ptonomy smirks. "Too late. I’ll give you the new employee orientation."

Lenny makes a finger gun and shoots herself in the head. “Bang,” she says, and follows Ptonomy and Amy deeper into the mainframe.


	28. Day 6: She misses his sweet, uncomplicated joy.

Once it's clear Lenny isn't coming back, the alters join Syd on her cot, and Cary joins Kerry on hers. They sit facing each other, trying to absorb what they just learned.

"I didn't know," Syd says, helplessly. She didn't know. When she first got to Clockworks, she couldn't stand for anyone to be near her, much less touch her, much less-- She would scream if anyone got within arm's reach. And then David was always with her, sticking to her like glue, and Lenny was usually trailing behind, though she always had a casual excuse to be near them. At the time Syd had wondered if Lenny was jealous of her. Even though Lenny’s gay, she was always so possessive of David.

No, not possessive. Protective. Because as far as anyone knew, David couldn’t possibly protect himself. He was the perfect victim, just what Farouk wanted him to be. Unaware of his powers, unaware of himself, drugged and defenseless and so, so vulnerable. All the other monsters must have been drawn to him like flies to vinegar. If he didn’t have the alters and Lenny looking out for him—

“Was David trying to protect me in there?” Syd asks. “How much did he know?”

“Too much,” say the alters. “We couldn’t stop all of it, not without making everything worse for him. We couldn't get him out. We weren't strong enough to stop Farouk, and Clockworks was where Farouk wanted him to be.”

“Was he— Was he raped?”

“There were attempts, but we always found ways to stop them, even if all we could do was create a distraction so he could run to the common room. The attempts were upsetting enough. He couldn’t make himself forget and Farouk didn’t want him to forget, but he tries hard not to think about those moments, like he tries not to think about a lot of things. He mostly suppressed them, but— I think what happened between you, and in the white room—“

“What about the white room?” Syd asks, but she already knows the answer. She wishes she didn't.

“Farouk was inside of David when you first— He wasn’t controlling David, not directly, but he was influencing him, he was very— present in him, in the form of Lenny. David tried to suppress that, too, because he didn’t want to give up what the white room gave the both of you. It didn’t bother him much when he thought Farouk was Lenny because of how much he trusted her, but now he knows the truth. Now it’s all coming back, all of it together, tangled up. He’s been trying to force it back down but he can’t stop it. Not after what he did to you.”

“He has to forgive himself,” Syd says. “The guilt is going to destroy him, never mind Farouk.”

“If we knew how to make him stop hating himself, we would have done it years ago, decades.”

“God. How’s he ever going to get better? He’s been through so much.”

“We’re not giving up on him,” the alters insist. 

“I don’t understand,” Kerry says, distressed. “Why would anyone do that to David?”

Cary puts his arm around her. “Last year, when Walter attacked you. It was very much the same. People like Walter and Farouk and those orderlies, they hurt people because it makes them feel strong. It’s a lie they tell themselves. They’re not strong at all, just weak and cruel. I should have been there to protect you, like Divad and Dvd were there to protect David. I’m so, so sorry I failed you.”

Kerry leans against him, silently forgiving him. Then she looks to Syd and the alters. “I don’t understand rape. Why— what’s the point? Why do they want it so much? Sex is so— weird and gross and— I don’t understand why anyone would want that.”

“Rape isn’t sex,” Syd says. “It’s violence.”

“But it’s sex,” Kerry insists. “It’s a man doing— that. Sex things, but— Violent. I don’t— I don’t understand how David could have done that to you. Even if Farouk made him. He wouldn’t.” Her chin crumples. “I hate Walter so much. I was glad when he died, all squished up in a ball. I don’t want to hate David.”

“David isn’t anything like Walter,” Syd says, and she’s so glad that that’s true. She’s so glad she was wrong when she thought that he was a monster, on that terrible day a week ago that brought them here. 

God, this is complicated. How can she explain this in terms Kerry can understand? 

“What David did,” she begins. “It wasn’t the same as what those orderlies did. He didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. But— he made me forget what happened that day. He wasn’t trying to hurt me but he still hurt me. He thought that if I remembered what Farouk made me believe, I wouldn’t love him anymore, and that scared him so much. But he was wrong. If he had let me remember and told everyone what had happened, if he had given me time to come back to myself, I still would have loved him. I still love him now. I forgave him for making a mistake. But he can’t forgive himself. As bad as he hurt me, what he did to himself was worse. That’s why Farouk made him do it, to make him suffer.”

Kerry wipes her eyes. “So he didn’t—“

“David had sex with me,” Syd says, gently. “He shouldn’t have, but he didn’t force me. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He didn’t do it because he thought he had a right to my body. He was just so afraid that— That he hurt me the same way he hurts himself when he’s afraid.”

“I guess he does that a lot,” Kerry says, and she’s calmer now. “It’s hard, being afraid. It’s— It’s really scary.”

“It is,” Cary agrees. “We’ve all made mistakes when we’re afraid. Sometimes we can even hurt people by protecting them too much, because we’re afraid. But we learn from our mistakes and we grow and we try not to make the same mistakes again.”

That seems to help Kerry even more. “That’s right,” she says, confidence returning. “It’s never too late.”

Cary gives her a loving smile, and she smiles back.

Syd slumps in relief. That’s one crisis averted. She looks at the alters and a new question comes to her. “You’re both Divad and Dvd at once, right?”

“Yes.”

“So how does that—“

“We share,” say the alters. “We used to share all the time.”

“But you’re still two people?”

They nod. “David needed us a lot to function. Not just to protect him from the monster. Over the years, he got worse and worse. We had to pick up the slack. We got him through school, into college, even on a scholarship. We had to cheat, but—“ They shrug. “David needed us.”

“And then Farouk got between you,” Syd says.

“When he decided to take David away from us, when he made David forget us and himself— We think he had to do it that way, because if he’d just taken us away, David wouldn’t have been able to survive on his own. So he made David forget almost everything, made him think he’d had a normal childhood. There wasn’t much left, but there was enough, along with the memories Farouk constructed out of half-truths.”

“Is it true, what you keep telling him? Is he still himself?”

“It’s the truth. David has always been David.”

“It’s hard to imagine that anyone could survive what he has and not be—“ Syd thinks about what she asked Lenny and Amy the night she went to their cell, utterly drunk. “How did you do it? How did you keep David David?”

“You’ll have to ask him that,” the alters say. “He did that himself. We’re— we’re very grateful that he did.” They sit back down on David’s bed. “If it’s all right, we need to let David rest. And please don’t tell him about any of this. He’s not ready.”

“This whole night never happened,” Syd promises.

“It’s our secret,” Cary promises, and Kerry nods.

“Um,” say the alters, and they’re staring at the Vermillion that Lenny left standing by the bed. “Can someone move this thing?”

§

Syd lies in her cot, wide-awake while everyone else sleeps around her. She wishes she had an alter that could make her sleep the way Divad can. Or a relationship as close and healing as Cary and Kerry’s.

She misses David. She misses lying in his arms in the white room. She misses the way he smiled for her. She misses his sweet, uncomplicated joy. 

She feels like the biggest idiot in the world. 

She knew Clockworks wasn’t a good place. She knew. But she didn’t know, not really, because she was just a white. She was only a visitor. David and Lenny were there for life. They were never getting out. They were reds, which meant they were targets. All the bad things in Clockworks were reserved for people like them. The victims no one would believe. The ones that the system gave permission to hurt, because they were too broken for society to consider them worth protecting. 

Syd thought she knew what it meant to be a victim, a survivor. She knew nothing. 

It’s worse, somehow, all of this. It’s worse than Farouk. He’s just one man. A powerful, monstrous man, but he’s— Finite. Contained. If he’s killed the right way, he’ll stay dead, presumably. 

Clockworks and the systems that support and feed places like it? They can’t be killed. They exist because society needs them to exist, so society can throw away its broken people with a clean conscience. Its broken plates. That’s what David calls himself, a broken plate, and he has every reason to believe that’s true, because that’s how the world has treated him. He cracked and the world threw him away, over and over. 

Until Summerland. Until Melanie. 

God, she misses Melanie. They’re probably never going to get her back, and she misses Melanie so much. They used to talk, late nights after long days trying to save lives, and they would talk about— Nothing. Everything. Oliver and David. The dream of making the world safer, better, kinder. 

The world got a lot less kind when Farouk took Melanie away from them. Syd hates Farouk for an enormous list of reasons, but destroying Melanie is right at the top. Right after all the ways he reached into David’s guts and shredded them and left him bleeding out, slowly dying in agonizing pain, for years. For decades. He’s been dying for decades, and she was so blind to his truth that she got mad at him for loving her too much. 

Maybe David shouldn’t forgive himself, if forgiveness means letting her back into his life. She pushed him away and punished him because of her own fears, even before Farouk got to her. And now he can’t even look at her without his eyes filling up with guilt and sadness and self-loathing. 

He can’t even look at her. In Clockworks, all he did was look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on her like she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world. 

And she was. She was the only thing that mattered in his whole world. She knows that now because she’s finally starting to see all the darkness around her that made her shine so bright to him. 

His world was so, so dark. Pitch black, so even her little light must have shone like the midday sun. It’s no wonder all he wanted to do was look at her and bask and smile. She must have made him feel so warm. 

But that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more from him when he was already giving her everything he had. She tried to change him to suit herself, like Farouk changed him. She hurt him and confused him and took away the things he needed to survive. And when he couldn’t give her any more because he was empty, she turned against him, she blamed him for not saving the world, because if he didn’t save the world it meant he wasn’t saving her. 

And then she broke him. Farouk put the words in her head but she thought them and said them to him. She raised the gun at him and pulled the trigger. 

She forgave David because what she did to him was worse than what he did to her. It was easy to forgive him when she realized that. She asked David to forgive himself, but the truth is that she hasn’t forgiven herself either. She doesn’t know if she can. 

God, what a pair they make. 

She needs to fix this, somehow. She needs to help him recover, however much it’s possible for anyone to recover from the things he’s been through. Reading about her diagnoses helped her, so she’s been reading and highlighting and making notes so he can read about his diagnoses and—

She just wants him to get better. That’s all she’s ever wanted for him. She never realized how huge of a demand ‘getting better’ would be. It’s no wonder he fought against it so hard. 

She’s been reading about trauma for days, about the deep, permanent trauma that makes a child’s mind fracture. About the neurochemical underpinnings of anxiety and depression. About the mechanisms behind lost and recovered memories. 

She got so deep into the hows and whys of his sicknesses that she forgot about his heart. But that’s nothing new for an Untouchable Barrett. Hearts aren’t something her family does. She and her mom were both all head; cold, analytical thinkers who kept the soft, messy parts of love at a distance. 

David is nothing but soft and messy. That’s why she fell in love with him, but it’s also why she kept hurting him. It’s why she couldn’t just be happy he was back, no matter how hard she tried. She needed him to make sense but there’s nothing sensible about him.

If David was sensible, he would never have survived. He would never have been able to love her the way he loved her. If he was sensible, there wouldn't be any hope for him. The last thing he should ever be is sensible.

She knows that now. She just wishes she knew it from the start. She wishes she knew so many things before she tried to help him and only made him worse. Just like Amy did. Just like Divad and Dvd did, according to Ptonomy. He keeps them all updated on the things he learns that they can't hear, because not knowing the truth about David is what got them here in the first place. She doesn't like violating what's left of David's privacy, but if they don't all know the truth they can't save his life.

The truth is-- The truth is everything. It's awful and it's painful and everything she learns she wishes she could forget. But not knowing is worse. Not knowing is how Farouk was able to do so much damage right under their noses. Not knowing is how they hurt themselves and each other. So they have to know, they to open David up and pry into his heart.

Maybe she should be doing some prying into her own heart. Farouk won't leave her alone either, and not just because he can use her to hurt David. He left that music box for her. He was in her head, and as brief as that was, it left a permanent connection between them. He's used his knowledge of her to push her buttons again and again, to make her do exactly what he wants her to do. Just like he does to David.

So what does Farouk want to turn her into? What destruction is hidden inside her, waiting for the catalysts of his alchemy?

She already has the answer, just like David does. Her dark future self, cozying up with Farouk, allowing Amy to be killed, stealing David from the people who love him and then setting him against himself. That future feels no more true to her than the world-killer feels true to David. But the orb was sent from decades in the future. She and Cary were somehow still alive after all that time. That means Farouk doesn't need to break them now. He can break them the same way he's been breaking David all along: a little at a time, chipping and chipping away for years, and then stealing them away from themselves all at once, making them into monsters, making them empty the world so the world is only monsters. So the world is only Farouk, and he is its god.

As immediate and horrible as all of this has been-- The truth is that this is only the beginning of what he wants to do to them. It's only the beginning of how he plans to mold and carve them into his masterpiece of a sunrise. For all the damage Farouk has done to all of them, it's nothing more than the first few drops of rain before a hurricane. His cruelty is so immense that it's not enough for him to torture David for every moment of his life. He wants to torture the whole world, and the only way he can have enough power to do that is if he makes David his instrument.

Syd thought she was one of the only things standing in the way of that. Farouk attacked her twice to keep her from helping David. But he used her, too. He used her to break David in the desert. He used her to escape David's body. He allied with her future self and thanked her in the cafeteria for her invaluable assistance. She can't imagine ever turning against David to help Farouk, but she already has, more than once, and just like David, she's afraid that Farouk will make her do terrible things again, no matter how much she doesn't want to do them.

What was it that Divad told Ptonomy? That David is afraid he's tied to the tracks, and the future is a freight train that's going to run him over. He's terrified that he won't be able to stop any of it, no matter how hard he fights, no matter how loudly he screams NO. 

She's starting to realize that she's been tied down to the tracks beside him. Farouk's future is coming for her, too, barrelling down with just as much awful inevitability. But she's not tied as tightly and the train is still far away. There's still time to get herself free and get David free, too. She has to, she has to, or Farouk will use them both to end the world.

He'll use them both. 

Oh god, she's going to help him end the world.

She gets up and runs to the sink and throws up. There's plenty coming out of her this time, all that healthy food Cary's making them all eat, so David and Kerry can learn how to eat. There's so much. She rinses the sink, rinses out her mouth, and leans over the counter waiting for the worst of the nausea to pass. She bends over the sink and throws up again, but then she's done. She rinses again and leans over the counter, exhausted, hurting, terrified.

"Syd? Syd, what's wrong?"

It's Cary. He puts on his glasses and hurries over to her.

"I'm okay," she says, and feels like David, always insisting he's okay when he's so painfully, obviously not.

"I don't think you are," Cary says. "What's wrong? Was it the food? I can adjust the meal plan if there's something that disagreed with you."

"It's not the food," Syd says. She grabs a paper towel and wipes the sweat from her face. She has to sit down. She wobbles away from the counter and Cary reaches out to help her, but stops before he touches her. She sits down at the table and tries to calm her stomach.

Cary fills a cup with water and brings it over to her. He sits down beside her and gives her time to settle.

She sips the water. 

"It's not just David," she says, finally. They have to know the truth or Farouk will win. "It's not just David we have to help. We have to help me." 

She meets his eyes. He's confused, of course.

"Syd--"

"No, listen to me," she tells him. "That me in the future that told David to help Farouk. That's-- Farouk's going to use me. He's going to turn me into that and use me to turn David into a world-killer."

"We don't know that," Cary soothes.

"We do," Syd says, certain. "We tried and convicted David of ending the world because of her. And I'm not her but-- But there's something in me that will become her. There's some-- _monster_ inside me, and he's going to carve everything else away until that's all I am. Not right now, he's so patient, but he's going to keep carving until he finds it. Until he gets what he needs so he can turn David. He's going to use me to hurt David the way he already has, and I won't be able to stop myself."

Cary doesn't want to believe it any more than she does. But his testimony was the other thing that convicted David.

"Okay," he says, accepting it. Accepting the truth, even though it's awful, because they have to accept every truth. "We'll tell Ptonomy, assuming he hasn't already heard all of this."

On cue, the Vermillion springs back to life from where they left it propped against a wall.

"I heard," says Ptonomy, as he joins them at the table. "And I think you're right. So how do you want to proceed?"

Syd rubs at her face, tries to think. "I had weekly sessions with Melanie for a while. Then things got busy, and then--" And then they lost Melanie. 

"I should be able to find her notes," Cary offers. "Ptonomy can use them to catch up."

"Do you have any ideas about what you need to work on?" Ptonomy asks.

"A few," Syd sighs. "But I think-- Whatever it is, it's going to take work to dig it out."

"That's what therapy is for," Ptonomy assures her. "We'll find it. We'll help you get better. You're not going to end the world and neither is David."

"I hope you're right," Syd says. God, she hopes he's right.


	29. Day 7: Is this what it’s like to have brothers?

They're having eggs again for breakfast, and Syd keeps yawning.

"Late night?" David asks.

"I was up late reading," Syd says, and yawns again. "Sorry."

"Perhaps you should take a nap," Cary suggests. "Then you'll be rested for later."

Cary looks a bit underslept himself, but then things have been stressful for all of them. David's just glad he's been sleeping so well, he'd probably be even more of a mess if he wasn't. 

"What's later?" David asks. He knows he has his session today, more memory work with his alters. Yesterday's memory work was rough, extremely rough, but after last night he feels ready to face the next round. He got to go outside and held Kerry's hand, he got his lamp back and remembered it and fell asleep watching it turn. He realized that he'd actually given back to the world and helped people, even if it took him a while realize that was what he did.

"Ah, I'm starting therapy myself," Syd admits. 

"You are?" David asks, surprised.

"Yup. I've realized that-- I have some issues I need to work on. So I don't become something I don't want to be."

"But you don't-- You said you were better about-- About touching. About your antisocial-- I don't understand, you didn't do anything wrong."

Syd gives him a look. "David, therapy isn't a punishment. Is that what you think, that therapy is a punishment?"

It's not, he knows it's not. But-- He shrugs.

"Well, you're wrong," Syd says. "And you're also wrong about me. I did do something wrong. I hurt you, remember?"

David looks down at his eggs and pokes them with his fork. "Do I have to?" For all the work he's doing to find a good memory, for all that he's impatient to remember that, he's really sick of remembering other things. 

"Not right now," Syd allows. "But I do. I need to work on why I did that. Why I believed what Farouk told me to believe."

"He made you," David says, stubbornly, to his eggs. "It's not your fault."

There's a pointed silence. David hates it.

He's not going to forgive himself. He doesn't care how many times they tell him or lecture him or sigh at him. He's just-- Unforgivable, as a person. If he's a person. That's just what he is. They can all move on to helping him fix his giant list of other mental illnesses and psychological problems. They'll still be busy until the heat death of the universe.

"Okay," Syd says, letting it drop. She turns to Cary. "I think I am going to take that nap." She finishes the last of her breakfast and walks away from the table.

She's mad at him now. David hates it when she's mad at him. He especially hates it when she's mad at him for something he can't do anything about, like being abducted and dropped off a year later. By her.

Okay, maybe she did hurt him. Future Syd and Now Syd, or past-Now Syd. Maybe she hurt him a lot. He just doesn't want to think about any of that stuff when all that does is make him hurt more. Like Amy and Clockworks. Like Lenny and-- He just wants to let all of it go and move on with his life, whatever that means anymore. Whatever life he even has left. He doesn't know why he can't just let it go.

"That's why you need therapy," Divad points out. "So you can work through all of that and process it and deal with it. Ignoring it won't make it go away."

Ignoring Divad certainly isn't making him go away.

"I heard that," Divad says.

"I know," David replies. "Are you going to be visible all the time now? Both of you?"

"Yup," Dvd says. "We're not going anywhere. Period. So get used to it."

"No one else can see you," David reminds them. "Even when Oliver's awake. Syd sat on you," he says to Dvd.

"Eh, it didn’t hurt," Dvd shrugs, then smirks. "I bet you'd like Syd to sit on you."

David rolls his eyes. He wonders how he wasn't immediately thrown into the nearest mental hospital when he was a kid, if these two have always been with him, talking to him.

Divad and Dvd don't like that thought. And then David realizes why. 

"Sorry," he apologizes. What Amy said yesterday, about him talking to people that weren't there, about that being one of the reasons they thought he was schizophrenic. He created them to protect him, but their existence hurt him, too. Even if Farouk made everyone think he was crazy in other ways -- and he's not looking forward to learning what those other ways were -- it’s no wonder they didn't want anyone to know that they existed.

David can tell today is going to be great. He’s already pissed three people off and he hasn’t even finished breakfast yet. 

“At least he’s finally thinking of us as people,” Divad says to Dvd. "Baby steps?"

"That must be one tiny baby," Dvd replies. "Like, not even a preemie. An embryo."

David gives the finger to Dvd. Dvd gives the finger back to him.

"Oh, very mature," Divad sighs, but smiles. 

David lowers his hand. It always feels weird when he falls into their dynamic, or into something like what it must have been with the David-that-was, with Past David. Like Future Syd was a different person than Syd. They had a whole dynamic with Past David, and they keep pretending that if they recreate it with David, it will make him into Past David again. And it won't. It can't. He's not that person, even if technically he is, and he still has nothing to prove that he is.

"We have the lamp," Dvd points out. "We remember that lamp perfectly. We share a lifetime of memories of that lamp. How is that not proof you're the same person?"

It's a fair question. David doesn't have a good answer to it, except that it isn't. "It's not enough," he says. “It’s just a lamp.”

“You love that lamp,” Dvd says. “You looooove it.”

David grits his teeth. Is this what it’s like to have brothers? 

“Yes,” Divad says, firmly. “We’re your brothers. That’s exactly what we are.”

“First you’re real people and now you’re my brothers?”

“Yup. Amy said so. We’re triplets.”

“Well, if Amy said it,” David mocks, but if Amy said it— No, this is ridiculous. “We are not triplets.”

“Three identical brothers,” prods Divad. “I don’t see what else we could be.”

“No one can see you at all! And— And when did you talk to Amy?”

“When he took our body when you were asleep,” Dvd says. “We should talk to Amy. She wants to talk to you, remember? And I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet."

"Ptonomy said I don't have to talk to her until I'm ready," David says. "I'm not ready. Besides, shouldn't you be angry with her? She put us in Clockworks."

"Oh, I'm pissed," Dvd says, brightly furious. "Why do you think I want to talk to her? I can't wait to tell her off for everything she put us through."

Okay, now David is definitely not going to talk to Amy. At least not while Oliver is awake.

"You want to yell at her, too," Dvd says to Divad. "Don't pretend you don't."

"We don’t want to hurt her," Divad defends. "She didn't know what Clockworks was like. We didn't tell her."

"She didn't care," Dvd insists. "She dumped us and then acted like visiting us for 15 minutes once a month was some kind of gift. She lied to us and told us we'd only be there for a few weeks. David has every right to be angry and so do we! You're the one who needs to stop pretending. David needed help, fine, but not-- Not that place."

Dvd goes quiet, and so does Divad. They both look at David like they're waiting for him to react. David raises his eyebrows at them. 

"Anyway," Divad says, changing the subject. "If we're not gonna talk to Amy, we should read Syd's book."

Even the idea of reading it makes David squirm. "No."

"What are you so afraid of?" Dvd asks. "It's just a book. It's not gonna bite us."

"It's not--" David stops, tries again. "I already know what's wrong with me. Reading about it is just-- Salt in the wound. It's just me hurting myself more. It's-- It's humiliating."

Like therapy. It's all a humiliating punishment, all of it. All the 'work.' Even if he has to do it, even if it's good for him, he hates it. It's torture. He's been tortured his whole life by doctors and therapists and books and he knows it's never going to stop any more than Farouk is ever going to stop but he's not going to subject himself to it even more than he already has to.

"Sorry," he says, preemptively, because he knows Ptonomy just heard that, wherever he is in the mainframe. He doesn't want to piss off Ptonomy, too.

"Ptonomy says your apology is accepted," Oliver says. "And he says Syd's right and you should read her book."

"Maybe I should take a nap," David grumbles. He's wide awake, but he knows Divad could make him sleep if he wanted to. He glances over and sees that Syd is already tucked into her cot with a sleeping mask and earbuds. His heart hurts every time he sees her sleeping. His heart hurts every time he sees her. Sometimes he wishes she would go invisible so he wouldn't have to see her, but that makes him feel even worse.

He felt so much better last night. He just wants to hold on to that happiness, but he can't because no one will let him have any peace. They all just keep pushing him, trying to help him whether he wants to be helped or not. But isn’t that the story of his life? People hurting him to help him, and he just has to take it. 

“Ptonomy says you’ll be talking to Amy when we do the memory work,” Oliver relays. “It might help to talk things out with her before you learn more about your past.”

Of course. Of course. “Is there a reason I can’t talk to Ptonomy directly right now?” David asks. 

“He says he’s busy.”

Busy! What else could he possibly be doing? He’s stuck in a computer!

Damn it. David’s going to have to talk to Amy now so he doesn’t mess up his memory work later. God, he hates his life. 

“Fine,” he grits out. “Just let me finish my breakfast first.” At least that will buy him a few minutes to brace himself.

§

As soon as David agreed to speak to Amy, he realized, belatedly, that of course he and his alters had already been speaking to Amy all morning. She just couldn't speak back.

He was right. He should have gone back to bed.

But there's nothing he can do to take back all of that now. It's said, it's done. He just has to take what's coming to him.

"Amy," he greets the Vermillion. "Hi."

"Hey," Amy says, the way she used to greet him when she sat down across from him in the visitor area in Clockworks. 

There's still a barrier between them, this one even more impassable. The more his life changes, the more it stays the same.

"Sorry about, um. All of that." David winces.

"No, it's-- It's all right. All of that was true. And the truth is important, right? For your therapy. For our therapy."

"Our therapy?" David asks. Kerry and Syd and now Amy, too? Apparently everyone really is inspired by his disaster of a life to make their own lives better. He hopes they don't expect him to be happy about that.

"I'd like us to get better together, if we can," Amy says, sounding hopeful. "I don't-- I never wanted to hurt you. Ever. I'm so, so sorry that I did."

"I know," David says. He knows she's sorry. He knows she didn't mean to hurt him. That's what makes all of it so much worse. 

He trusted her. He trusted her when he couldn't trust himself. He trusted her to make the right decisions for him because he wasn't capable of making them. He signed his life over to her so she could make those decisions. And she decided. She decided to lie to him. She decided what was best for him was to be locked up for the rest of his life in a place that would hurt him. It would keep him alive but it would hurt him every single day in so many different ways. And she visited him and smiled for him and lied to him every single time, because he'd always ask if he could leave soon, and she would always tell him she would talk to his doctor about it, and she didn't. If she talked to Doctor Kissinger at all, it was to make sure he stayed right where he was.

"You're right," Amy says, quietly, her voice tight with grief. "I was-- I didn't know how to help you. You tried to kill yourself. I was-- I was so scared you would try again and-- Everyone said you would try again. And look at you now. They were right. I needed a way to save you and Clockworks-- I didn't choose it blindly. I went there. I talked to the doctors. Everything seemed fine, I didn't-- If I'd known what was happening, I would have taken you home. David, I would have. Why didn't you tell me?"

Why didn't he tell her?

Because he heard things, saw things, things that weren't real. He didn't know what was real. He couldn't trust himself to judge and he still can't. Amy thought Clockworks was where he needed to be, and he trusted her more than he trusted himself. By the time he realized that it wasn't all in his mind, that there really were terrible people hurting him, that he was being abused, that the fear he felt was grounded in something real and it wasn't just his usual free-floating terror--

He'd already been there too long to speak up. Too many bad things had happened and he didn't want her to know about any of them. He was ashamed and he let his shame silence him. Because that was where he belonged, wasn't it? So whatever happened to him, it was what he deserved. 

"Oh, David," Amy says, and she's crying. He can hear her crying. That's why he never wanted to tell her any of it. Because of this.

"You should have told me," Amy says, and now she's angry. At him, at herself? He can't tell. "I cried anyway, in the car after-- It doesn't matter if I cry. It matters if you're safe. It matters if you're being hurt and I can do something to stop it. You have to tell me if you're being hurt. I'm your big sister. You have to tell me, okay?"

David can't answer that. He trusted her and she hurt him, but-- But it was his fault, because he didn't say anything. He thought he belonged there. Part of him still thinks he belongs there, now more than ever. If he'd never kissed Syd, if he'd just stayed where he was put, maybe Farouk would never have used him to hurt anyone else. It would have been enough to just hurt him and hurt him and hurt him while Farouk swelled up like a tick on his power, the feast making him fat and lazy and contained. But David wanted something he couldn't have, something he didn't deserve to have. He wanted to be loved, and because of that, Farouk wanted more, too.

And Farouk got what he wanted. Of course he did. He made sure David got what he wanted, too, and then twisted it all up into a noose and strangled him with it.

"You deserve to be loved," Amy says, fiercely. "You never deserved what that place did to you, what that monster did to you. Listen to me, David, please. If you trust me more than you trust yourself, then trust me when I tell you that I know what you deserve and it isn't this. It isn't. You are not-- You're not unforgivable, okay? Trust me, please."

He wants to. He wishes he could. But he trusted her and she hurt him. She lied to him so many times. She put him in that place and left him there and he accepted it because he trusted her.

And Farouk showed him. He showed him Amy laughing. He showed him Amy's cruelty. He showed David the truth he didn't want to accept, stabbed him in the gut with it and savored his pain.

David knows that Amy didn't mean to hurt him. But she hurt him so much.

"I'm sorry, I have to--" He stands and turns away. "You can talk to her now," he tells Dvd.

"I think you said enough for both of us," Dvd says. "C'mon. Let's go--" He looks around. "Let's go sit by the window, okay?"

"Okay," David echoes, and follows him.


	30. Day 7: You want to stay with us. So stay with us.

"Is this seat taken?" asks Ptonomy.

David looks up. It's the Vermillion, standing next to the seat Dvd is sitting in.

"Um," David starts, but Dvd gets up.

"I think he can help you more than I can," Dvd says. "I'll let you two talk." He walks away. David doesn't look to see where he goes.

David gestures for Ptonomy to sit down. The Vermillion sits. Its posture isn't quite so unnatural anymore. It feels a little more like it's actually Ptonomy in there. Not that it isn't, but-- It's hard, sometimes, remembering that. It's hard to remember all the people inside the mainframe, listening, waiting.

"You have trouble remembering," Ptonomy says. "I've noticed, hearing your thoughts, observing you. Remembering is hard for you in general."

"I don't have many good things to remember," David says, bleakly.

"It must feel that way."

"It is that way," David says. "Apparently most of my life was so awful that the other parts of my mind don't even think I should remember it."

"Maybe," Ptonomy says. "But the other parts of your mind are traumatized, too. Just as much as you, in their own ways. Even if their memories are better, their judgement isn't perfect. They've both admitted to making mistakes. You need to make that decision for yourself. You should remember, if that's what's right for you."

"You said I shouldn't remember either," David reminds him.

"I don't think you're in any condition to remember those things right now, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Dissociative amnesia doesn't have to be permanent."

David doesn't remember getting that diagnosis before. "Dissociative amnesia?"

That's when he notices the book tucked under the Vermillion's arm. Syd's book. Ptonomy pulls it out and opens it, flips through the pages until he finds what he's looking for. He holds it out to David.

David really doesn't want to take it. He takes it anyway.

The chapter heading is 'dissociative disorders.' David expects it to be about his identity disorder, but that's not where it starts. Syd highlighted part of the introduction:

_Dissociation is a word that is used to describe the disconnection or lack of connection between things usually associated with each other. Dissociated experiences are not integrated into the usual sense of self, resulting in discontinuities in conscious awareness. In severe forms of dissociation, disconnection occurs in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception._

"Dissociation seems to be your primary defense mechanism," Ptonomy says. "Not just your DID. There's a wide spectrum of dissociative behaviors. Sometimes it's as simple as putting your attention somewhere else, like daydreaming. The more extreme the stress, the more you pull away from yourself. Yesterday, after the memory work, you cut yourself off almost completely. All that pulling away leaves you vulnerable. It makes you confused. You forget things you need to remember because remembering them upsets you. Like the fact that Amy is in the mainframe with me and Lenny."

Lenny. He hasn't talked to her since she came back.

"No, you haven't," Ptonomy says. "She's not happy about that. But we'll deal with that later. We know why you don't want to think about Amy. We need to talk about that, too. But why don't you want to think about Lenny?"

"I don't know," David says, but he-- He doesn't want to think about Lenny.

"Don't pull away from how she makes you feel," Ptonomy says. "I know it's painful, but ignoring it won't make it go away."

David shifts in his chair, restless. "I can't."

"You can," Ptonomy insists. "What's happening here-- As hard as it is, it's an opportunity like no other. The memory walks I used to do? They were an incredible therapeutic tool. They allowed people to confront their pasts from the perspective of the present. But telepathy allows me to understand your thoughts themselves. The patterns they fall into, the ways you sabotage yourself and the ways you survive. After barely two days, with the help of Oliver and your alters, I understand you better than you understand yourself."

"That's not a high bar," David points out.

"And the reason for that is in part because of how much you refuse to understand yourself," Ptonomy replies. "Dissociation is a survival tool, a powerful one. But it hurts you, too. It traps you in the very trauma you're trying to escape, long after the trauma is over. It blocks you from processing your emotions and memories and moving on. You need to learn new skills that will allow you to do that. You need to learn to stay present and engaged with the good parts of your life."

"What good parts?" David asks.

"Your family. Your friends. The work you can do to help others. And small things, too, like going out to the garden, being in nature. Things that trigger good memories, like your lamp. I know you want to be part of the world, David. And you are, even in here. You don't need to be physically outside to be part of the world."

David wraps his arms around himself. Ptonomy wasn't kidding about knowing him. David could read minds his whole life and he doesn't know anyone as well as that.

"That's because of Farouk, whether he made you forget or prevented you from learning," Ptonomy says. "Between his influence and your misdiagnosis, you've been made to question yourself at every step. You've been taught not to trust your own thoughts, your own instincts. Even once you could hear people's thoughts and know them for what they were, you didn't trust them either. You were afraid to."

David's starting to wonder if Ptonomy is secretly another one of his alters.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Ptonomy says, warmly. "You're what's been keeping me busy, David. Understanding you, going back over your thoughts and the things you've said, reviewing the footage Division 3 has of you. Reviewing your case notes from Clockworks and all your old therapists and doctors. A lot of those notes are wrong because they were made under the assumption that you were schizophrenic. But I can read between the lines, knowing what I know. I can see what they couldn't. I can see _you_ , and because of that I can see what will help you get better."

David looks away from the Vermillion, looks back down at Syd's book. Under the heading for dissociative amnesia, she highlighted: 

_Dissociative amnesia does not refer to permanent memory loss, but rather to the disconnection of memories from conscious inspection. Thus, the memory is still there somewhere, but cannot be reached._

She underlined "the memory is still there" with strong penstrokes.

He should be relieved. The memories are still there, at least some of them. But--

"But?" Ptonomy prompts. "Finish the thought. You can do it."

David grips at his arms. His heart beats faster, even with Divad keeping him steady. "I'm afraid," he says, tightly. "I don't want to remember."

He doesn't want to. He already hurts so much, he doesn't want to remember all the things that made him hurt when it's only going to make everything so much worse.

"That's how you feel all the time, isn't it?" Ptonomy asks, gently. "It's automatic. I think that's what happened when we found you in the club, and you woke up and couldn't remember."

David looks up, startled.

"Back then I thought you were lying, but you were telling the truth," Ptonomy says.

David nods. "I couldn't-- There were flashes, but--"

"I saw," Ptonomy says. "But you remembered later?"

"Some of it," David says. "The amplification chamber. I remembered-- Dancing. Fighting, or-- Some kind of--" He closes his eyes and tries to make sense of it, for the hundredth time. "I remembered being taken. The orb, Future Syd. She told me to help Farouk. And then I was on a rooftop, and-- And I reached out for him and I found him. I went to the club. Oliver was there, Farouk, Lenny, I--" He swallows. "I remember her-- him. She--"

A flash of Lenny embracing him while he held utterly still, unable to move. Her mouth over his.

"I didn't want it," David says, urgently. "I didn't-- He--" He can feel his panic, dulled and held at bay. He doesn't want to remember. He doesn't want any of it.

"Stay with the memory," Ptonomy says. "What did Lenny do?"

"It wasn't her," David insists.

"Farouk was still using her face," Ptonomy says. "That's why he killed her in Clockworks. He needed Lenny to manipulate you. Because you trust her more than you trust yourself."

David opens his eyes and looks at the Vermillion. 

"That's what he does, right?" Ptonomy asks. "He takes the people you trust and uses them against you. That's what he did to Syd. That's what he did to us, after the desert. He made us turn on you so we would finish what Syd started."

David can't even nod. But it's true.

"That's what he did to Amy," Ptonomy continues. "He didn't make her put you in Clockworks, but he made you so sick she had to put you somewhere. He used her image to hurt you in the hospital fantasy, and then again after her death."

He pauses to let David confirm that, but he can't. He doesn't need to and he can't.

"I understand why you wouldn't want to remember those things," Ptonomy soothes. "I don't think anyone would want to remember that kind of pain. But forgetting hurts you, too. Because the memories aren't gone. They're still there inside you and so are all the feelings you don't want to face. And until you face them, until you work through them, they're going to keep hurting you. Farouk is going to keep hurting you for the rest of your life unless you make the pain stop. The only way you can do that is if you let yourself remember. Maybe not the worst things, but the things happening to you now. You're here now and all of this is happening and we need you to accept that."

He pauses again, but David still can't reply.

"I know you're scared," Ptonomy says. "But remembering is what lets us learn from our mistakes. It's what helps us get better. And I know you want to get better. You don't want to lose the good things. You want to stay with us. So stay with us."

David wants to. He doesn't want to lose the good things.

"Good," Ptonomy soothes. "That's all you have to do right now. Just stay with us and try not to pull away. When you're hurting, talk to us. Don't go away. Don't try to disappear."

David doesn't want to go away. He doesn't.

"So what will help you stay?" Ptonomy asks. "What's a good thing that will help you?"

David knows the answer right away. "Kerry," he says, throat painfully tight. He needs Kerry.

Kerry comes right over. She stands in front of him, and then she leans down and hugs him. He holds her back and buries his face against her shoulder, and her hair brushes his cheek. He hugs her so tight he pulls her down onto his lap, but she just keeps hugging him. She’s really good at hugging. It must be all the practice she has with Cary. 

Holding her, being held. Syd was right, it helps. It helps so much. Being touched, feeling the warmth and life of another person against him, body to body. It pulls him back to himself, grounds him. His heartbeat slows. He’s okay. He’s okay. 

He eases his hold on Kerry but doesn’t let her go. He still needs her. He feels selfish, needing her, but— But he needs her anyway. 

“It’s not selfish,” Ptonomy says. “It’s human. It’s the same thing everyone needs. Everyone.”

David used to go to Amy when he was upset. She would hug him and make everything better, at least for a while. He can’t hug her anymore. He could never touch Syd, even though— And Lenny— 

He’s not ready to think about Lenny. 

But Kerry’s here. She’s here and she’s alive and she can hold his hand and hug him. 

When he finally lets her go, he wipes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says, though it feels inadequate. 

“You don’t have to thank me for a hug,” Kerry says. “I need them, too. They’re— They’re nutritious.”

David laughs at that, just a little. “I guess they are.”

He feels so much better. He can’t believe how much better he feels. He notices that Syd’s book fell to the floor and picks it up. 

“What’s in there is nutritious, too,” Ptonomy says, warmly. “Why don’t you take the morning and read some of it? Sit with us. I’m sure you’ll have questions.”

“You can write them down,” Kerry suggests. “You need a new notebook, right? You filled up the first one.”

Cary brings over a fresh notebook and a new pen. “You know,” he says, in a mock whisper. “Kerry’s not the only one who likes hugs.”

David hesitates, but he remembers Cary hugging him in the cell. David stands up, leaves the book on the chair, and takes a cautious step towards him. 

Cary hugs him, and he still gives the best hugs. Kerry clearly learned from the master. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been keeping my distance,” Cary says. “I didn’t want to get in the way. But you’re my friend, too, just as much as Kerry’s. We’re both here for you.”

Cary holds out the notebook and pen, and David takes it. 

“You know,” Cary says, “I’ve been thinking what this lab needs is something more comfortable than chairs. And Clark did say he’ll give us anything we need to help you get better. Let’s give him a call.”

§

When Syd wakes up, she sits up and pulls off her sleep mask. Then she wonders if she’s still asleep. She pulls out her earplugs and stands up.

She must have been out cold, because while she was napping the lab was rearranged again, and now there’s a big, comfortable sofa against the wall by the window. There’s a coffee table, two overstuffed bean bag chairs, two loveseats, and the furniture is arranged around the coffee table. Cary and Oliver are in one loveseat, and Kerry, David, and the Vermillion are on the sofa. Everyone is reading. David is reading her book, and he’s making notes in a notebook. Kerry and David are sitting so close that their arms touch. 

“What did I miss?” Syd asks, astonished. 

David looks up. His eyes fill with pain when he sees her, like they’ve done for days, but he doesn’t look away. “Um, you know me and my rough mornings,” he says, and tries to smile. It doesn’t quite work, but it’s better than him breaking into tears. “Ptonomy got me to start reading your book.”

“I guess I should nap more often,” Syd says. She takes a few steps closer. “Can I join you?”

David visibly struggles. But he nods. 

She goes to sit down in the empty loveseat, but Ptonomy stops her. “That's already taken,” he explains. 

Oh. Divad and Dvd must be there. She doesn’t want to accidentally sit on one of them again. 

“I can make room?” Ptonomy offers, sliding over.

“That’s okay.” Syd sits in one of the beanbag chairs. She sinks down into it. It’s pretty comfortable.

“Actually,” she says, pushing herself back to her feet. “I should freshen up first.” She feels a bit grungy after her nap. She looks at the clock. It’s almost lunchtime. She turns to Cary. “I could pick up lunch. They’ve got our order, right?”

“They do,” Cary says. “Do you need help?”

“I’ve got it. I’ll just be—“ Syd gestures at the bathroom and walks over to it. She closes the bathroom door and leans back against it. 

She wasn’t—

She wasn’t ready for that. For David— She wasn’t ready. 

She’s relieved. She’s happy. She is. But— She missed it. Whatever just happened, whatever small miracle made him feel so much better. They didn’t wake her up. Not that they should have woken her up. She barely got any sleep last night after Lenny showed up. She was so tired at breakfast. 

But—

God, it’s stupid. It’s so stupid. There's no reason for her to feel excluded. David's therapy is everyone's priority, hers included, and if the others found a way to move him forward, that's what's important.

But she wanted-- 

She wants to be the one to help him. She needs to make up for hurting him, for maybe hurting him again if she can't stop herself from doing it. She spent days with that book, making it for him, but he wouldn't take it from her. He took it from Ptonomy.

It doesn't matter. The important thing is that he took it at all. He's reading it. He's even taking notes, instead of just staring at it like it's made of poison or might physically attack him. And he's--

He's sitting with Kerry, so close they're touching. Arm to arm. David won't let Syd touch him without him breaking down, but Kerry can touch him.

David didn't even talk to Ptonomy or Kerry before all of this. He talked to Syd. If something was wrong, if he talked to anyone at all he talked to her. He turned to her for everything.

That was what she didn't want, wasn't it? That was why she kept trying to make him stand on his own, to be strong. That was why she trapped him in her head for hours and hours, teaching him what ended up being the wrong lessons. 

But it's still-- 

Maybe she did want it. Maybe she wanted both things. She wanted David to be strong, but she wanted David to need her, the way he needed her in Clockworks, the way he needed her in Summerland. She wants to be the strong one, the one he turns to, the one who helps him get better. 

And now he's getting better, and she's-- 

She's the one who needs help. She's the one who's afraid of what's coming for her. And she doesn't have him. She doesn't have anyone, not like-- Not like Cary and Kerry have each other. Not like David and Divad and Dvd have each other. She's just the Untouchable Syd Barrett, alone the way she's always been. The way she always will be, according to the future she saw in Farouk's labyrinth. She was still wearing David's locket in that future, decades from now, long after she lost him. She'll always be alone, because the only love she ever had was David, and she's going to help destroy him. She already has.

She can’t let that future happen. She can’t let Farouk win. She can’t let him use her again. She can’t let him take David away from himself, even if she couldn’t stop him from taking David away from her. 

She can still stop herself from taking David. Not in the past, but in the future. She can still protect him, still save him. She just has to save herself.


	31. Day 7: Maybe suicide is just the ultimate form of dissociation.

David can only read about a half a page of Syd's book at a time. 

Once all the furniture was delivered and everyone settled down to read together, David braced himself and opened up the book. He didn't go back to the chapter on dissociation. He wasn't ready for that. He thought it would be easier to start with the diagnoses he already knew about. His anxiety and depression, his suicidal impulse, his PTSD.

They're not easier. 

He wants to blame the book, for laying everything out in such stark, undeniable language. But it's not the book that made him sick. It's not the book that-- 

It's not the book.

There's a lot of overlap between all of his diagnoses. His diseases. Anxiety is a symptom of post-traumatic stress. Suicide is a risk factor for depression. Symptoms of everything include insomnia and poor self-worth, feelings of hopelessness, emotional instability, inability to function, disrupted relationships. As he reads, a minute at a time, and then five, ten, fifteen minutes holding Kerry's hand, it all blurs together into one tangled mess.

Even the treatments are the same. Psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, drugs. Some of the same drugs he was forced to take when they thought he was schizophrenic. Not that they ever helped him, but he did have a parasite in his head actively stopping anything from helping him, so it's not the drugs' fault either.

But he's really glad that-- That he doesn't need the drugs. He's glad he has Divad and that Divad has mutant emotional regulation. That Divad helps him sleep and keeps away the nightmares. He hasn't had a nightmare in days despite having every reason to wake up screaming. He's had nightmares ever since he was a kid, even though he usually couldn't remember anything about them except that they were terrifying. Before Clockworks, after he was expelled from college, he tried to stay high all the time, to get as far out of his own head as he could, trying to make the nightmares stop, trying to make everything stop.

Maybe getting high is just another form of dissociation. Or suicide. Maybe suicide is just the ultimate form of dissociation. Maybe dissociation is a mild form of suicide.

Kerry suggested writing down any questions he has, but he doesn't have any questions. He's lived with all of this for so long, he knows the bones of it even if some details are new. But he does write down the pieces that match him. Each diagnosis is really a cluster of different diagnoses, grouped together for convenience and simplicity. Like how his schizophrenia wasn't schizophrenia at all, but a combination of symptoms that formed the illusion of it. Like painting white stripes on a black horse and calling it a zebra.

He reads the chapter on schizophrenia a half a page at a time. He doesn't write anything down from that. He can reject it completely and so he rejects it. It was never his and he doesn't want it.

And then Syd wakes up, and it's time for lunch, and David is glad for the excuse to take a break. Even if that means facing something else that he can only take a little at a time, holding Kerry's hand.

He should probably let Kerry have her hand back so she can eat.

Besides, he needs to be able to-- To be present. With Syd. With Amy. With-- Everyone. He needs to practice staying, even when he feels the urge to-- To dissociate. To go away. He doesn't want to go away. So he has to practice staying.

But when he looks at Syd, she’s the one who looks like she wants to be somewhere else. 

It's probably him. Him being present. He hurts her, that's what he does: his actions, his existence. But-- Syd's been trying to get him to stay with her for days. She touched him. She highlighted and underlined and made margin notes for him. So as hard as it is to think about Syd, he thinks about Syd.

She's starting therapy. To work on her issues, whatever they are, so she doesn't become something she doesn't want to be.

It's like what he's doing, in a way. He doubts she's worried about being turned into some kind of crazy god who ends the world, but-- He's trying to not become something he doesn't want to be either. Trying to not become it again. Trying to figure out who he even is, if he's not what Farouk made him into. If there's anything to find.

Okay, he's not gonna be able to let go of Kerry's hand for a while. She'll have to eat with her left hand. He should eat, too. He picks up half his sandwich and takes a bite.

Syd. He needs to concentrate on Syd. She's starting therapy. It's always-- It's always stressful, starting therapy, no matter how many times he's done it, even though he doesn't so much start therapy as continue it forever while his therapists hand off his patient notes like a baton.

Syd's had therapy before. Private and group sessions in Clockworks. That's how they met, she was talking about-- About living on a cartoon island with a single palm tree. That was her happy place. And she said-- She said the things that made them crazy were what made them who they were. So he asked if she would be his girlfriend. 

She said yes, even though he was-- Completely certified, institutionalized, heavily medicated, schizophrenic and a dozen other things. She didn't know he had powers. She barely knew anything about him, but she probably knew he was never going to be released from Clockworks. She still said yes.

He still doesn't know why she did. He didn't know then, either, but he was so surprised and delighted that he didn't want to question it. He didn't want to risk popping whatever miraculous bubble had descended and surrounded him. He knew it would pop, it couldn't last, nothing good ever lasted, but-- He just wanted to be happy, to forget everything else and be happy.

Maybe falling in love is a form of dissociation. Maybe falling in love is a form of suicide. He wanted to let who he'd been die and become someone else with her. And for a while it worked. For a year, he was happy, he was someone else, he was-- He was the David he thought she would love. And she loved him, her David.

The bubble popped. Her David-- He died, when she shot him, when he-- And now he doesn't know who he is, much less why she's still here, still-- Helping him. Touching him. Being kind to him, like he's worth being kind to.

He wasn't worth being kind to before. He couldn't give her anything. He couldn't even hold her hand, but she didn't want that from him anyway. She didn't really ask anything from him except to be with her. To make her smile, even though it was only because of her smile that he was able to smile for her at all.

He was the single palm tree on her island, providing shade and the occasional coconut. Something to lean on, if only metaphorically. 

Maybe that's why she's starting therapy now. Because she's on an island without a single palm tree. That sounds very-- Lonely. 

She looks lonely.

He should say something to her. He should-- Try to make her less lonely. He's not her palm tree anymore, he's not her David. He's not anything. But she still keeps trying to make him stay. And he's trying to stay. He's trying.

"Um," he starts, looking at her. Making himself look at her. "How's your sandwich?"

Stupid. She's eating the same thing he is, that they're all eating. That's the best he can do? He's so--

She stares at him, surprised, though she doesn't show it much. Syd's never been showy.

"Good," she says, still staring at him. It's starting to make him self-conscious.

"Mine's, um, good, too," David says, and god, he's just crashing and burning here. "Not as good as cherry pie, but--"

He shouldn't have said that. Now she looks even more upset. He can't do anything right, why did he think he should talk to her?

"I'm sorry," he says, because he's been awful and apologizing awfully for days, so he's just apologizing automatically now so he doesn't become a villain. Not that apologizing is going to save him from becoming a villain. If only it was that easy. His life is never that easy.

"Are you apologizing for talking to me?" Syd asks, and when he looks up she's-- Still surprised, but-- Amused? Disbelieving? Both?

It feels like a trick question. "Yes?" he tries, even though that means he just talked to her some more, so he should probably apologize again. "Sorry."

He can't actually apologize for talking without talking more. This isn't going to end well. He takes another bite of his sandwich to keep his mouth from making things worse.

“You can talk to me,” Syd says, somewhere between exasperated and concerned. “It’s— I want you to.”

David swallows his food. She does? Of course she does. She’s been trying to talk to him, he’s the one that keeps running away. Dissociating. Now that he knows that’s what he’s been doing, it feels like that’s all he’s been doing. He should probably finish reading that chapter. 

He wants to run away now. He keeps holding Kerry’s hand instead. Kerry’s really going to regret it when she realizes David has permanently attached himself to her arm. 

He doesn’t know what to say. His mind is devoid of safe topics. His mind is a void.

“You don’t have to,” Syd says, softer. “If it upsets you that much.”

She’s hurt. She’s trying to hide it, but he knows when she’s hurting. 

“No, I— I want to,” David says, even though he hurts, too. Everything hurts, being alive hurts, but he wants it anyway. He’s not going to let his stupid pain make him hurt Syd again. “I’m sorry I’ve been— Running away and— I’m sorry.” He has to stop apologizing or he’ll be trapped in some kind of apology loop forever. "Do you-- If you want to talk about-- Your therapy? You don't-- I mean, if you don't want to--"

Syd talked to him about a lot of things in Clockworks, but she never talked about her therapy sessions with Kissinger. He would tell her about his, but-- When she talked, when they talked together, they would complain to each other about how useless Kissinger was, or about the cafeteria food or how they only showed the same old movies over and over. And Lenny would-- 

It's terrible to think that he was happy there. When Syd tried to save him from Walter's bullets and he pulled her into the white room and the monster came for them, he screamed and screamed and time slowed to a crawl and he pulled everyone into the safest place he could think of. 

Clockworks wasn't safe. His fantasy of Clockworks might have been if it was only his fantasy, all of them trapped in the bubble of happiness he shared with Syd. But the monster was fully in control of David's mind and body, and Farouk twisted it like he twists everything: with the truth. He made Amy cruel because she was cruel. He took away David’s schizophrenia because he was never schizophrenic. He made David not want to leave, because as awful as Clockworks was, in that last year of it he didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay in that bubble with Syd forever. He would have been happy to live day by day, growing old with her in a mental hospital. That was the best future he could imagine for himself, for them together.

The monster couldn't change Syd. It couldn't make her want to grow old with him in a mental hospital with all the other freaks. Syd always wanted to leave. She might not have asked anything of him, but she still wanted more. She wanted him to get better so he could be out in the world with her, but— He doesn’t belong in the world.

Ptonomy told him not to hold himself separate from the world. This morning he told David that he’s part of the world even if he’s not outside. David's trying to accept that, but he doesn't-- He doesn't know if he should. 

Syd never wanted his happy endings. She didn't want them in Clockworks and she didn't want them in the desert. She would never have wanted to run away with him to a farm. She's a city girl, raised on the thirty-first floor. He could never have made her happy in any future. What makes him think he could make her happy now? What even gives him the right to try?

Nothing. Nothing, like what he's worth. 

"Okay," Syd says, casually. Like she said okay when he asked her to be his girlfriend.

"O-okay?" David asks, surprised.

"Yeah," Syd says. "I know all about your therapy. You should know about mine."

"Are you-- Are you sure?" David asks. Syd's so private about everything. He's the one who spills his feelings all over her. She doesn't spill hers. She just tells him what she needs him to hear, very calmly even when it's awful, or shows it to him in loops he can't escape. 

"Yes," Syd says, confident now. "No secrets, right?"

David stares at her. 

Syd stares back, challenging.

"No secrets," David says, because it's the only thing he can say. It was always the only thing he could say. He doesn't have any secrets left anymore, so at least now he can say it and mean it.

Except it's Syd who means it. 

Did he-- Did he dissociate and miss something? Because he is definitely confused. But he looks to Dvd and Dvd shakes his head and shrugs.

David turns back to Syd. "So-- So what are you--"

"Future Syd," Syd says, very calmly. "Farouk turns me into her so I'll make you destroy the world. I don't want to do that to you or the world. So I'm going to kill Future Syd."

David leans forward, alarmed. "You-- You can't--" 

"Not literally, David," Syd says, patiently. 

"Oh. Right." David leans back, relieved. He runs his hand back through his hair, and realizes suddenly that he let go of Kerry's hand. He doesn't even remember letting go, but he did. And he's-- He's still here. He's staying. He's talking to Syd and he's staying.

"How's the book?" Syd asks, and takes a bite of her sandwich.

"Awful," David says, honestly. "But, um. Helpfully awful. I still haven't-- I haven't finished it yet. My chapters."

"What's left?"

"Dissociative disorders," David admits. "Saved the best for last."

Syd considers this. "Maybe we could sit together while you read it."

David swallows. He looks back at the sofa, at the window behind it. At the book waiting where he left it. He looks at Syd and her calm, expectant expression.

"Okay," he says, feeling-- Feeling-- Confused. Hopeful. Uncertain. 

It's not-- This isn't a bubble. Whatever just happened, whatever-- It's not a fantasy he's escaping into. It's too painful and messy for that. Syd's going to sit with him while he reads about all the things that are wrong with him. About his identities and his amnesia and whatever else is waiting for him in that chapter. He won't be able to hide because she already knows what's in it. He won't have any secrets from her.

He has every reason to want to run away from that. But he wants to stay.

§

David and Syd sit down together on the sofa. Just the two of them, a safe distance apart but still close. It’s so much like before, like nothing has changed, except everything has changed.

David opens the book and finds the chapter on dissociative disorders. 

He can do this. He's doing this.

He re-reads what he already read. Dissociation is the disconnection of things that should be connected. His consciousness, memory, identity, and perception. Stress, trauma -- he can't take them so he pulls away from them. He pulls away from his memories, from his emotions, from his sense of himself as David Haller. He forgets and dissociates and becomes someone else. He becomes two other people who can keep him safe, or try to.

He turns the page and looks at the section on dissociative identity disorder.

He reads the first part. Most of it is highlighted. There's several underlines.

_Dissociative identity disorder reflects a failure to integrate various aspects of identity, memory, and consciousness into a single multidimensional self. Usually, a primary identity carries the individual's given name and is passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed. When in control, each personality state, or alter, may be experienced as if it has a distinct history, self-image and identity. The alters' characteristics—including name, reported age and gender, vocabulary, general knowledge, and predominant mood—contrast with those of the primary identity. They may be hostile, controlling, or self-destructive. Certain circumstances or stressors can cause a particular alter to emerge. The various identities may deny knowledge of one another, be critical of one another or appear to be in open conflict._

Syd crossed out 'deny knowledge of one another.' She underlined 'a primary identity carries the individual's given name and is passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed.' She underlined 'hostile,' 'controlling,' and 'Certain circumstances or stressors can cause a particular alter to emerge.' She underlined 'critical of one another' and 'open conflict.'

Passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed.

He wants to cross that out. He wants to set the book on fire. But he keeps staring at those five words.

How can-- The people who wrote this book, how could they-- How could they know him? How could they know his life? How could they sum up so much of him in five words when he's struggled for so long to even acknowledge those truths?

How dare they-- How dare they _know_ him, when _they don't know him_.

Syd waits silently beside him, watching. She read this and she highlighted those words and then she went back and underlined them because she knows him, too. She knows what he is. If she knows what he is she should-- She should be physically sick. She should walk away. She should find someone else to help, if she wants to help so much. She should know he can't be saved.

Passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed.

He's depressed, obviously he's depressed. He knows that. He knows he's-- Passive, dependent. Even before Clockworks. He tried to be in the world and he failed in every way. He wasn't cut out for real life. That's why he ended up with an extension cord around his neck. Not just because of the voices and the hallucinations he couldn't stop, not just because of the nightmares and the fear, but because he took and took from everyone around him and gave nothing back. Because no matter how hard he tried, he was never going to get better. He was never going to be worth all the things he took from Amy and Philly and his parents and the world. 

And of course he's guilty. He's hurt everyone, all he should ever be is guilty.

But none of that is why it's in the book. The people who wrote it couldn't have possibly known that. They couldn't know about any of the things he did. So why did they write it? Why is it here?

"Why--" he asks, voice tight with upset. "Why is this here?"

Syd looks at where he's pointing. She reads the sentence she's read before, read again, highlighted and underlined.

"Why shouldn't it be?" Syd asks.

He looks at her. "Because it doesn't have anything to do with-- With anything."

"Is it wrong?"

"No," David admits. "But that's not the point. It shouldn't be-- It doesn't have anything to do with-- With having other people in my head."

"They think it does," Syd says, reasonably. "The authors. They looked at the whole history of people with DID and that's what they saw. It's not a judgement. It's an observation."

David looks back down at the book. _The alters' characteristics contrast with those of the primary identity. They may be hostile, controlling, or self-destructive._

Divad and Dvd. They're not just people in his head. They're other parts of him. They're--

They're other parts of him. He's the self-destructive one, but they're-- They're hostile and controlling and self-destructive, too. Both of them, in different ways. They try to protect him with violence and hostility and control, but they hurt him, too, because all the parts of him are traumatized and he hurts himself. He's hostile to himself. He tries to control himself.

And he's passive and dependent. And he's guilty.

All of that should be-- It should just be him, that feels that way. No one else should feel the way he feels.

But so many other people feel it, they had to put it in a reference book.

He's a unique case. No one else has been through what he's been through. But there are pieces that match, the same way there are pieces of his anxiety and depression and suicidal impulse and PTSD that match.

He's the primary identity with David Haller's name. He's passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed.

It's not enough. The people who wrote this book didn't know about mental parasites that can reshape memories from within like they were soft clay. David still has nothing to prove that he's anything more than a paper-thin copy of Past David.

But even if he's just a copy, the person he's a copy of must have felt the same things he does. Because that's what primary identities feel. So that's what Past David felt. Past David and Now David felt the same things.

It's another thread, like the lamp. It's not enough, but it's another thread just barely tugging them towards each other.

David reads on, not just the highlights. He reads all of it.

_Particular identities may emerge in specific circumstances. Transitions from one identity to another are often triggered by psychosocial stress. In the possession-form cases of dissociative identity disorder, alternate identities are visibly obvious to people around the individual. In non-possession-form cases, most individuals do not overtly display their change in identity for long periods of time._

_People with DID may describe feeling that they have suddenly become depersonalized observers of their own speech and actions. They might report hearing voices, and in some cases, these voices accompany multiple streams of thought that the individual has no control over. The individual might also experience sudden impulses or strong emotions that they don't feel control or a sense of ownership over. People may also report that their bodies suddenly feel different, or that they experience a sudden shift in attitudes or personal preferences before shifting back._

_Individuals with DID may have post-traumatic symptoms (nightmares, flashbacks, and startle responses) or post-traumatic stress disorder. As this once rarely reported disorder has grown more common, the diagnosis has become controversial. Some believe that because DID patients are highly suggestible, their symptoms are at least partly iatrogenic—that is, prompted by their therapists' probing. Brain imaging studies, however, have corroborated identity transitions._

_More than 70 percent of people with DID have attempted suicide, and self-injurious behavior is common among this population. Treatment is crucial to improving quality of life and preventing suicide attempts._

Syd highlighted 'possession-form cases' and 'most individuals do not overtly display their change in identity.' She highlighted 'depersonalized observers,' 'hearing voices,' and 'multiple streams of thought' and 'impulses or strong emotions that they don't feel control or a sense of ownership over.'

She highlighted and underlined 'highly suggestible' and 'corroborated identity transitions.'

She highlighted the entire paragraph about suicide and self-injurious behavior and circled it.

"I'm highly suggestible?" David asks. He thought it was just Farouk. He thought he was just—

"That's what the book says," Syd replies. "I think-- Dissociation is a kind of self-hypnosis. You're putting yourself into a state where you'll accept a version of reality that doesn't match what your senses are telling you. But that means it's easy for other people to make you accept things that you might not want. Dissociation makes your personal boundaries... permeable."

David thinks of Lenny-- Benny. Benny telling him to rob Doctor Poole's office. David didn't want to. He liked Doctor Poole. He didn't want to hurt him. But he did because Benny told him to, and he trusted Benny.

Benny told him to do a lot of things. So David did them. Future Syd told him to do things he didn't want to do, but he did them anyway. Because he trusted her and she said he had to. He accepted his life in Clockworks because Amy told him he had to. Syd told him that life was war and he had to hold on to his pain and his anger and his despair. So he did.

That's what he's been doing. Even after he thought he'd lost her forever, he still did what she told him to do. He's still doing what everyone has told him to do. Because he's been telling himself to do things for so long he just lets anyone tell him to do anything.

Farouk didn't even need to be inside his head to control him. He didn't need to be inside his head to tell him what to do, how to feel, what to see. Because dissociating meant David let all their ideas go right into him.

He's been doing it to himself. He thought he was helping himself but all he did was leave himself wide open to being hurt again and again.

"I need to stop," he realizes, looking to Syd. "I have to stop dissociating."

But Ptonomy said-- Ptonomy said his identities couldn't be put back together. 

He looks for the end of the section, for the treatment guide.

_Psychotherapy is generally considered the main component of treatment for dissociative identity disorder. In treating individuals with DID, therapists usually use individual, family, and/or group psychotherapy to help clients improve their relationships with others and to experience feelings they have not felt comfortable being in touch with or openly expressing in the past. It is carefully paced in order to prevent the person with DID from becoming overwhelmed by anxiety, risking a figurative repetition of their traumatic past being inflicted by those very strong emotions. Dialectical behavior therapy is a form of cognitive behavior therapy that emphasizes mindfulness and works on helping the DID sufferer soothe him- or herself by decreasing negative responses to stressors._

_Mental health professionals also often guide clients in finding a way to have each aspect of them coexist and work together, as well as developing crisis-prevention techniques. The goal of achieving a more peaceful coexistence of the person's multiple personalities is quite different from the reintegration of all those aspects into just one identity state. While reintegration used to be the goal of psychotherapy, it has frequently been found to leave individuals with DID feeling as if the goal of the practitioner is to get rid of, "erase," or "kill," parts of them._

He can't put himself back into one piece. Just like his lamp. He was shattered and-- And he can't unshatter himself. But he can learn to coexist with Divad and Dvd. They can-- They can get help. They can stop dissociating in all the other ways they dissociate. They can stay with the people who care about them and work through their memories and emotions.

Divad and Dvd can't go away. But the three of them can get better together. Like Syd wants to. Like Amy and Kerry want to. They can get better together.

The book goes on about treatment methods, but David skims them only briefly before closing the book and setting it aside. He has a lot to think about, a lot to understand and accept. He trusts his friends to help him get better. Maybe he shouldn't trust them so much, maybe he needs to learn to trust himself more than everyone else, but-- 

That's what he is. Right now, that's what he is. He needs help and they're helping him, and he wants to get better. He's ready to get better.

"Thank you," he tells Syd, genuinely. "For the book, for--" For everything. For everything. It's too huge to say and he wishes she could hear his thoughts but he hopes she understands him anyway. He hopes she can see it in his face, in his eyes, how grateful he is to her for not giving up on him even though all he's ever done is give up on himself.

Syd smiles for him, sweet and tight-lipped. "I'm glad I could help you. I'm glad you-- You chose to stay."

"I didn't," David says, because he would have killed himself if he could. If anyone let him. He tried to. He might try again. The feeling is still there, even if it's blunted and further away.

"You did," Syd says. "I talked to Amy and Lenny and Divad and Dvd and that's what they all said. They couldn't save you, but you saved yourself. David saved himself. I know you don't believe that's who you are. But you are and you did."

David wants to believe that. He wants to. 

"I guess we'll find out," he says. He's sure Ptonomy will want him to take a break and clear his head before the memory work, but he's ready. Whatever's waiting for him in his past, he's ready to face it with Divad and Dvd and Amy and Ptonomy. With his family, with his friends, with Syd. He's ready.


	32. Day 7: We killed it and it didn’t come back.

It’s one thing to talk to Syd, to let her sit with him while he reads about himself in her book. David owed her that much for everything she’s done to try to save him. The two of them have— He’s not sure what they are now, except that they’re not what they were, but— He thinks they’ve made a start, even if he doesn’t know what it is that they’re starting. 

But talking to Amy is— 

He needs to talk to Amy. For the memory work. He needs to listen to what she has to say so she can help him piece together the truth about his life, or Past David’s life. He can’t do that if every cell in his body is screaming for him to pull away from his memories and emotions as fast as possible. 

He thought he was ready to stay. He’s not ready. 

David grips Kerry’s hand tightly. At least this time he’s holding her other hand. If he never lets go again, she’ll still be able to hold a fork and write.

“You’ve already done a lot today,” Divad soothes. “If you need more time, we can do the memory work tomorrow.”

“No,” David insists, even though that’s what he said yesterday and look how that turned out. “I need to know.”

“You need to go slow,” Divad says. He glances at the Vermillion sitting in the loveseat and rubs at his neck. “Okay, how about this. If you can talk to Amy without— Without dissociating, we can do the memory work today. Ptonomy?”

“That’s reasonable,” Ptonomy agrees. “Remember what the book said. If you get overwhelmed, you’re just hurting yourself with the very trauma we’re trying to work past.”

They’re right. David knows they’re right. And he should be able to do this. It’s Amy. She’s his sister. She loves him. She’s always—

She’s always loved Past David. She put Now David in Clockworks and left him there. Maybe she knew the truth like Philly did. Maybe on some level, she knew he wasn’t her brother at all, and that made it easier for her to throw him away. 

“I think it’s only fair to tell that to Amy if you also let her answer you,” Ptonomy says. “She’s ready if you are.”

David thought it, he didn’t say it. He didn’t choose to let everyone hear his thoughts.

“Amy didn’t choose to be uploaded,” Ptonomy replies. “She didn’t choose to be killed and trapped in her own mind. She’s hurting just as much as you and you need to remember that. She’s trying to help you just like Syd. Just like all of us.”

Well, now David feels terrible in a completely different way. At least guilt is something he’s never needed to pull away from. He can wallow in guilt all day without needing to hold anyone’s hand. 

“We’ll have to talk about that,” Ptonomy says, because of course they will. 

“Can I talk to Amy now?” David asks, strained. At least he only has to deal with one of them at a time. 

“I’m here,” Amy says. “David, I don’t— You’ve always been my little brother. I didn’t care that you were adopted. I don't care that there’s three of you, I don’t care if there’s been two different Davids. You’re my Davey. You always will be, okay?”

When he doesn’t even think a reply, she sighs. 

“I know I can never make up for what I did to you,” Amy continues. “I know you can’t forgive yourself. But I hope you can forgive me. Not for my sake, but for yours. I know how much you’re hurting, I can hear it all the time and— You’re punishing yourself. You can’t do that if you want to get better.”

He’s punishing himself?

Ptonomy told David to stop punishing himself, and he thought he had. But apparently it wasn’t as easy as that after all. But then he hasn’t forgiven himself either. Maybe he’s able to resist some of the ideas other people keep trying to put into his head. 

“You were always stubborn,” Amy says, sad but fond. “Even if you don’t remember the truth, I do. You were always the most impossible, difficult little brother in the world. That only made me love you more.”

David’s grip on Kerry’s hand eases. “What was I like?” he asks. He thought he was normal, but he knew about his powers, he didn’t stay put even if they locked the doors. He was sensitive and cried too much. He must have been—

He must have been the most difficult, stubborn little brother in the world. But Amy loved him anyway. She loved him more. Even though he was adopted and strange and did impossible things all the time. 

“Let me tell you?” Amy asks, and she sounds like she’s smiling.

§

David’s back in the white room, and he pulls Divad and Dvd in with him. The furniture is still gone and the astronomy posters are still on the walls. Dvd sees them and looks pleased.

“You should add something,” he tells Divad. 

“Now really isn’t the time for decorating,” Divad says, but he looks contemplative. 

Ptonomy’s voice floats in through the open sliding doors. “David, are you ready?” 

“I’m ready,” David says. “Is Amy going to start again?”

“She’ll join in, but we’re focusing on your memories now. What you remember, real or not. Let’s pick up where we left off. You remember being a normal little boy.”

David closes his eyes and thinks back. He remembers Amy, his house, the forests and fields and the shore beyond. He remembers being loved, but he can’t remember his parents with any great detail. They’re gone, like Benny is gone, though not as completely. 

What else does he remember about his earliest years?

A dog barks in the distance. He opens his eyes. He’s standing in the long grass, like he did in the memory walk, but this moment is earlier and he’s seeing it from his perspective as a child. A young Amy is there, maybe eight or nine years old, and she's holding a leash. On the end of the leash is King, his beagle.

King. The Shadow King. The first form Farouk took when he went into David, at least as far as David has been made to remember.

“Oh, we remember him,” Dvd says, angrily. He looks like he wants to march over to the dog and kick it into orbit. Divad puts a hand on his shoulder, holding him back.

“It’s just a memory,” Divad soothes.

“Nothing the monster did was ever just anything,” Dvd says, turning to David. “He tricked us. When you first made us, you still thought King was real. We didn’t know any better, so we thought he was real, too.”

“When we realized King was part of the monster,” Divad explains, “you wouldn’t believe us. You loved King too much to believe us.” Hurt flashes across his face. “That’s how it started, him pulling us apart. That’s the first time he got between us.”

David remembers an idyllic childhood. He remembers King as his constant companion for years, always with him wherever he went, by his side day and night. He remembers loving King with all his heart, and King loving him back. 

But that’s not what happened. Or it is, but only parts of it, only half-truths, quarter-truths.

“We always knew King wasn’t real,” says child Amy. “But he made you happy. We decided to play along so you could have your imaginary friend. But—“

“But what?” David asks.

“King started to scare you,” says child Amy. She’s holding King’s leash short so the dog can’t reach David. “Not all the time, not at first.”

“He only scared us when David was asleep or went away,” Divad says. “He wanted us to know what he was, but not David.”

Right from the start, Farouk used David’s love and trust against him, used them to manipulate him and isolate him. From the outside, David would have alternated between adoring his imaginary dog and being terrified of him, making him look even more unstable. And from the inside—

“That shit beetle hated us,” Dvd declares. “We were in his way and he couldn’t get rid of us. He wanted you all for himself.”

“Amy, you said ‘not at first,’” David says. “What happened to King? I don’t remember him dying, or—“ In the false memories, King was his constant companion until one day he wasn’t anymore. If King was a real dog, he could have run away or died, but Farouk didn’t bother with that. He didn’t make David remember bringing King to the vet for shots or care. He didn’t even make David remember when he first got King as a puppy. King was just there, ideal and eternal, until he wasn’t anymore. 

“Farouk got bored with that game, so he started scaring you, too,” Divad says. “He terrified all of us all the time and no one else could see what he was doing. No one else could stop him. So we stopped him.”

“We used our powers together,” Dvd says, proudly. “We killed it.”

David shakes his head. “King was just an illusion. A mask.”

“We killed it and it didn’t come back,” Dvd insists. 

Art by Peribawang ( [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/peribawang/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/peribawang) ) [Click for full size](http://versaphile.com/files/wmfccioking.jpg)

"One day, you stopped talking about King," child Amy says. "We asked you about him, but you didn't want to talk about him. You just said you never had a dog. And you didn't, so--"

David kneels down and looks at King. The dog -- the illusion of the illusion of a dog -- looks back at him placidly. "Was it another trick?" 

"We didn't care," Dvd says. "King was gone and the monster couldn't hurt us with him anymore."

David stares at the dog. His memories of King are so strong. Farouk needed that love. He needed it before David made the alters and then he used it to divide them. And then when he couldn't do that anymore, he must have given up that mask so he could make other masks to terrify them with. 

When Farouk ripped out David's memories, he put King back. All that unconditional love and trust a boy has for his beloved dog. He put it all back and made it part of the foundation of who he wanted David to be.

David knew there was a monster. Farouk broke him with fear when he was still so young, that's why David made his alters in the first place. So King wasn't the first mask Farouk used, not at all. But he was the first mask that Farouk used to make David love him.

David thinks about Farouk in his cell, telling him that David was his baby. Telling him that he tried to make David love him and failed. David felt sick then, hearing those words, and he feels sick now.

The sight of King makes his skin crawl. All that love and it was never anything but-- It was just another violation of his heart and his mind and-- David doesn't want it anymore. It was never his and he doesn't want it.

He doesn't even close his eyes. He just stares and then King is gone, leash and all.

He stands and walks a few steps away, his stomach turning. It's not just King. It's his whole childhood, all these false memories he's relived again and again. All the happiness and love he clung to when things were so dark and hopeless, they were just-- It was all just another trick, another manipulation, another way for Farouk to-- 

David's wide-eyed puppy act. That's what Divad called it. Farouk wanted him that way, he wanted David to love and trust unconditionally the way he loved and trusted King. It wasn't just the dissociation and how it makes him suggestible. And even all of that combined wasn't enough. Farouk couldn't make David love him, like David couldn't make Syd love him after the desert, like the monster couldn't make Syd want to stay in Clockworks. 

Syd said he saved himself and he still doesn't know if he did. But--

Even if he's just a copy of Past David. Farouk couldn't make Past David love him, and he couldn't make Now David love him either. And-- Farouk would have, if he could. He's been trying for so long, he must want it so much. He must need it.

Farouk is a monster. But David was a monster: in the desert, after it. That's what Farouk turned him into, someone cruel who took what he thought he deserved. David thought he deserved Syd's love. And Farouk--

Farouk needs David's love. He thinks he deserves it. And when he couldn’t get it—

When he couldn’t get it—

Oh god. 

He feels—

He feels faint, he feels—

“David.” Divad is there, suddenly, holding his arms. “You’re going away.”

“David, stay with us,” Ptonomy says, urgent. “Dvd, get him out of there.”

“We’re out,” Dvd says, and then David is back in the lab, sitting on the sofa, and Kerry’s holding his hand and Divad’s trying to keep him calm but David can’t breathe, he can’t— He feels sick, his whole body feels hot and sick and—

Cary comes over and holds his arm, rubs his back. "Stay with us, David. Don’t go away."

He’s trying, but— He feels so— He feels—

And then Syd is in front of him, and she-- She takes his other hand. She puts his hand between her gloved hands and holds it. "David, stay with us. Stay with me.”

He looks at Syd. She holds him with her hands and with her eyes.

He has to— He has to stay. He doesn’t want to go away. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to. 

Kerry’s holding his hand and Cary’s touching his back and his arm and Syd is holding his hand and looking at him and he’s— 

He’s not going away. It’s passing: the sickness, the heat, the overwhelming, annihilating fear. It’s passing. It’s going away and he’s staying. He’s staying. 

He can’t think about— He can’t think about it. 

“You don’t have to,” Ptonomy soothes. “Not right now. Just stay with us. Be here now. That’s all you have to do.”

§

When David was missing for that long year, all Syd wanted was to find him so she could hold his hand. She didn't know if that was why he was gone so long but she knew how much he needed it. She knew he'd never ask it of her, he'd never take it, so he couldn't have it unless she gave it to him.

Whatever else David took from her, in his broken madness, he didn't take that. So she's still able to give it to him: her hand, her touch. She's finally holding his hand so he'll stay.

This wasn't what she had in mind.

David's staying, but that's about all he can manage to do. They got him to lie down on the sofa with his head on Kerry's lap, but he won't let go of Syd's hand, so she's sitting on the coffee table.

"No, not yet," Ptonomy says, then turns to them. "Divad asked if he should make David sleep. I don't think that's a good idea right now." He turns back to the empty space where Divad must be. "David's working hard to stay present. He'll sleep when he's ready and you can help him then."

Ptonomy listens some more, then nods. "We'll take it a little at a time."

It's still so strange to Syd that David can somehow be three separate people at once, that one of those people can be nearly catatonic while the other two hover around him trying to figure out how to help him, but that's how David works. Even Farouk couldn't change that, and he changed so much. 

"I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow for my first session," she says to Ptonomy. Not that she doesn't want to get started, but David's attached himself to her hand pretty firmly.

"No, we'll do it tonight after dinner," Ptonomy says. "We'll see if we can get David to eat, and by then he should be ready to sleep. I was hoping he'd be up to helping us, but it's probably better to use Divad and Dvd."

"What do we need them for?"

"You never met Future Syd," Ptonomy says. "You only saw her image. Only David and Farouk were able to project their minds into the future to talk to her. Fortunately for us, Divad and Dvd experience everything David experiences. So they can tell us everything David knows, and we don't have to put him through that. At least not for now."

"So I have to do a group session with two people I can't hear?" Syd asks. That feels-- It feels unfair, to have testimony given against her future self when she can't defend against it.

That's probably how David felt, trapped in a cage while the Vermillion read out the evidence against him. Farouk really did set them up to hurt him as deeply as possible. He didn't even have to brainwash her to make her hurt David that time, he just sat back and watched the fireworks.

"I'll help," Oliver volunteers. 

Syd looks over, startled. Oliver's been mostly quiet, letting the telepathic relay flow through him, occasionally saying something or quoting poetry. They've been keeping him busy all day and so he hasn't been able to leave his body to search the astral plane for Melanie. Not that he's had any luck so far, but if there's any chance Oliver can find her--

"You don't have to," Syd says. "David's in no shape for anything else today, you should go look for Melanie."

Oliver seems to consider this. "I used to do this, I think. Help people. A long time ago."

"You did," Cary says. "You were-- You helped a lot of people get better."

"And then I dreamed," Oliver says, closing his eyes. "Real as a dream. What shall I do with this great opportunity to fly? When I'm in awakeness what do I desire? I desire to fulfill my emotional belly. My whole body, my heart in my fingertips thrill with some old fulfillments." He opens his eyes, looks at them, his eyes more clear than they've been since he came back to them for the second time. He looks to Cary. "You said it was my dream to help people. Melanie carried it without me. She tried to help David, but-- He’s her last, unfinished dream. The least I can do is help finish it for her."

Syd smiles for him. "I think she would have liked that."

Oliver nods. "For the world is a mountain of shit: if it's going to be moved at all, it's got to be taken by handfuls."

"A little at a time," Ptonomy agrees. "We'll get that mountain moved."


	33. Day 7: She drew a heart for us. What a liar.

David’s tucked into bed and Cary’s taking his turn holding his hand. Even with Divad helping him sleep, David holds Cary’s hand tightly. He needs their help to stay connected to the world so he’ll come back to it when he wakes. 

But Syd has to focus on her place in the world right now. Or what it will be in the future. 

"This won’t hurt at all," Oliver says, reaching up to touch her forehead. "I’m just going to do a thing."

Syd pulls back from his hand. "A thing?"

Oliver pauses. "I’m going to put a telepathic antenna into your mind so I can relay David’s thoughts to you."

"And what about my thoughts?"

"I’ve always been able to hear your thoughts. I can hear everyone’s thoughts. I can relay yours to Ptonomy if you’d like?"

Syd hesitates. She probably should, given how powerful telepathy is as a therapeutic tool. But no. "No," she says, firmly. 

"All right," Oliver says. "Ready?"

Syd braces herself. "Ready."

Oliver's fingers touch her forehead, and— And nothing. She doesn't even feel it, what he does to her. She can't feel him reach into her mind and change it.

She wasn't awake when David did it, but she probably wouldn't have felt it if she had been. Farouk was right about one thing, mind readers are too powerful to trust.

"We shouldn't all be tarred with the monster's brush," Oliver says. He says it with his usual equanimity, but there's a hint of force behind it. "Otherwise why should any mutant be allowed to live?"

"Sorry," Syd says, chastened. She spent a year helping Melanie convince Division 3 not to classify all mutants as threats just because they had powers. She and Melanie had to teach them that lesson again and again until it sank in. Maybe she needs a little teaching herself.

Still. She understands why David is always complaining about having his thoughts overheard. Knowing her mind is being read, her thoughts listened to, it's incredibly disconcerting. She didn't think about it much with David because he rarely mentioned what he heard. He knew it made her uncomfortable so he didn't say anything. She told him her boundaries and he tried hard to respect them.

That's who he is, no matter what Farouk used her to make him do. She knows that's who he is, even if he doesn't.

"Sending you the relay now," Oliver says, as he settles back in the loveseat.

"-esting, one two three," drawls a David-like voice from the empty space her right. It's Divad.

"This is gonna be fun," says a David-like voice from her left. Dvd. 

"We're here to help Syd so she can help David," chides Divad. "Don't get carried away."

"We're here to finally tell everyone what a piece of shit Future Syd is," Dvd insists. "If Syd doesn't like it, she can—" He stops. She wonders if Divad is glaring at him. She's been getting pieces of their dynamic and she thinks that's what's happening.

'Dvd better not mess this up,' says Divad, but he's not saying it from her right. It sounds like he's saying it inside her head.

'Blonde bitch,' grumbles Dvd, and that's inside her head, too.

"The relay includes their thoughts as well as the thoughts David believes he is vocalizing as them," Oliver explains. "You get used to it. Telepaths learn to prioritize vocalized information and tune out the unsaid."

"We can't afford to tune out David's thoughts or the thoughts of his alters," Ptonomy adds. "So it's gonna be noisy."

"You're listening to our thoughts, too?" Dvd asks, alarmed. 'I knew they couldn't be trusted. Bunch of spies.'

'I am so not comfortable with this,' Divad thinks. "It's fine. They're helping David get better. That's all that matters."

"Yeah, he's looking real better," Dvd grumbles. 'I should be holding David's hand, not these people. We're David’s brothers but he doesn't even want to remember us. I hate this, I hate all of it.'

"Let's focus on the task at hand," Ptonomy says. "We're helping Syd understand her future self so that we can help her avoid that fate. Just like we're helping David avoid the future he shares with her. No one wants the world to end, right?"

"Right," Divad agrees.

"Right," Dvd sighs. 'Jerk. Kiss our ass.'

Syd doesn't expect Dvd to apologize for his thoughts the way David does. Clearly Ptonomy doesn't either. Divad isn't thinking about anything, but he is the part of David with mutant emotional regulation.

"Let's start at the beginning," Ptonomy says. "David was in Summerland and Cary's orb appeared. It took him. What happened next?"

"David freaked out," Dvd says. "We couldn't break free."

"We wanted to get back to Syd," Divad says, pointedly. "But then all of a sudden, Syd was in the orb with us. She was in some kind of black space, a mental projection."

"She couldn't talk," Dvd says. "She had this weird light wand thing, she wrote with it."

"She told us she was from the future and that time was running out," Divad says. "She wrote that Farouk was trying to find his body and that we had to help him. She told us not to tell anyone, and then she was gone."

"Did you notice anything else about her?" Ptonomy asks. "Any physical differences?"

"She was older," Divad says. "But not old. She was missing her left arm. She was wearing a locket."

"That's what I saw in Farouk's visions," Syd agrees. She can't help but touch her left arm, reassuring herself that it's still there. Then she thinks about the necklace. She pulls it off and looks at it. "David said Cary made this while he was in the amplification tank." She opens it and the compass needle points right to David. She holds it out for everyone to see.

"Cary didn't make it," Dvd says. "We made it. But we knew you didn't trust us. We heard you thinking it, and then you told us it was our fault we got taken even though it wasn't."

"David was very upset," Divad says. "We lost a year, and when we came back no one trusted us. He remembered a lot of bad things at once in the amplification tank."

"And then you said it was our fault," Dvd says, again, angrily.

"He was afraid of losing you," Divad says. "He was scared of being taken again. He was scared that if it happened and you thought it was his fault, you wouldn't want to find us."

Dvd snorts. 'We don’t need to be found. I'm the one who saves us, not you.'

Syd closes the compass. It really is the same one she saw in the vision, but David made it after he remembered seeing her future self wearing it. "Did he know this is what she was wearing? My future self?"

"We saw the necklace," Divad says. "We didn't know it was a compass. David didn't even think about the details when we made it, he just needed the necklace to exist and our mind filled in the blanks. I think— He thought if he gave it to you now, that meant you wouldn't stop loving us, because you were still wearing it in the future."

"Future Syd said she loved us," Dvd says, bitterly. "She drew a heart for us. What a liar."

"Why didn't he just tell me?" Syd asks them. It's the same question she's been asking herself for weeks.

"We did tell you," Divad defends. "We told you on the roof."

"Not all of it," Syd insists. "David always told me everything, but then he came back and he was different."

"We weren't different, everyone else was different," Dvd says.

"He lied to me," Syd insists. "He looked me in the eye and lied to me."

"You told us it was our fault we got taken!" Dvd says, loudly. "You didn't care about us. We were taken by you and when you let us go, everyone made it perfectly clear that the only thing they cared about was our powers. Help Farouk, David. Kill Farouk, David. How were we supposed to know what to do?"

'Bitch,' Dvd's thoughts snarl. 'You did this to us! I hate you!'

"Blame isn't going to help anyone," Ptonomy says, firmly. "David drowns himself in blame and you've all seen for yourselves how much that doesn't help. So don't make the same mistake."

Syd nods. No one says or thinks anything.

"Let's get back on track," Ptonomy continues. "Future Syd took David from Summerland. She told him that she was in danger and that he had to help Farouk in order to save her. She told him she still loved him but she put him back a year late. It's possible that was a mistake, but I don't think so. She did that on purpose."

"She wanted to disorient him," Syd suggests. "To isolate him from us." That's exactly what Farouk would do, but she did it.

"It gave Farouk a head start," Divad says. "He got to search for his body for a whole year without us getting in the way."

"But he still needed David's help to find it?" Syd asks.

"He didn't," Dvd insists. "Farouk never cared about that. It was just an excuse to keep us coming back."

Divad gives a thoughtful hum. "Farouk did try to convince us not to help Future Syd. He said if we did, it would be like helping her kill herself."

"Farouk was following the monk." Syd thinks back. "Just like us. The monk was the only one who knew how to find the monastery. David said Farouk needed his help for that because the monk was hiding in Division 3. But the monk only came to Division 3 to find the weapon we were supposed to have. When we didn't have it, he killed himself."

Syd hadn’t known that was what happened just before David entered her mind. She didn’t know what was happening outside of herself at all. She'd been trapped in a mental maze like everyone else.

"Even if Farouk did need help with the monk—" Ptonomy says. "I think you're right, all his actions were meant to keep David close, to make him culpable so he’d be afraid to tell us the truth. Even if Future Syd wanted David to help Farouk, Farouk didn't need the help."

"He did," Divad says. "Because she said that in her timeline, we killed Farouk in the desert."

"When did she tell you?" Ptonomy asks.

"The second time we saw her," Divad says. "After Farouk stole the genetic gun, we asked Kerry and Cary for help looking into the future. Multidimensional perception. We went into the tank and projected our mind into the future. Future Syd wasn't— She was surprised to see us."

"We couldn't read her mind," Dvd says. "We tried but it hurt."

"We confronted her. We helped Farouk get into Division 3 and Farouk killed people. He hurt Cary and Kerry. We needed to know why we had to help the monster. She said— 'It started like any other idea, as an egg. And then the few of us who are left went into hiding. But we don't have long. It's coming.'"

"That's it?" Syd asks. "That's— vague."

"She said she would need Farouk when things turned," Divad continues. "That Farouk kills a few but this thing kills everyone."

"Farouk's the reason we end the world in the first place," Dvd says, angrily. "What kind of stupid plan is that?"

"She must not have known," Syd says, feeling the need to defend herself, even if she agrees with Dvd. "None of us knew what was happening to David until we captured him because he kept so many secrets."

"I think we can all agree that secrets are what got us here," Ptonomy says. "That's why we need to understand the truth. Divad, what else happened?"

"Future Syd said we were sweet," Divad admits. "That we were like we were before. She didn't say before what. But David liked that, he offered to come back."

"Of course he did," Dvd grumbles. "That's what Syd does. She pretends to love us, lowers our defenses, crawls inside our head."

"I never pretended," Syd says, insulted. "I love David. If she's me, she must have loved him, too."

"She loved us so much she stole us for a year?" Dvd shoots back. "She loved us so much she made us help the shit beetle? She's the one who was messing with time so David would kill himself. You were trying to kill us! Again!"

"I'm not her," Syd insists, even though she is. Even though the whole point of this is to not become her simply by letting time pass.

"Did you see her again?" Ptonomy asks. 

"She sent us a psychic message," Divad says. "With the light writing. It just said ‘hurry,’ and we saw flashes of her in some kind of danger. But when we saw her again, she was fine."

"That was when we were looking for the monk," Syd recalls. She remembers the way David kept wincing with pain. "Hurry to find the monk?"

Ptonomy gives a thoughtful hum. "You saw her again?"

"One last time," Divad says. "We—"

"Syd told us to," Dvd interrupts. "We didn't want to but she made us."

"I didn't make you do anything," Syd says, irritated. How does David stand having Dvd in his head all the time? "David was upset after what happened to Amy. He wouldn't talk to me, so I thought maybe he would— Talk to me. Future Syd must have known about what happened."

"She did," Divad agrees. "She apologized but— She didn't care. She kept pushing us to help Farouk. When we pushed back, she guilted us about it. And—" He hesitates. "She asked if we could say goodbye."

"What does that mean?" Syd asks, but she thinks she knows the answer.

"We had sex with her," Dvd says, proudly. 

Syd was right. She saw them together in Farouk's visions, and she’s still not thrilled about it. "You hate Future Syd, why are you so happy?"

"Because unlike you, I actually care what David wants," Dvd says, angrily. "Even when he couldn't hear me, even when he didn't know who I was, I was always there for David. All you did was jerk him around and hurt him. I'm happy because making David happy hurt you."

Jesus. Syd can't believe Dvd is part of David. Dvd is nothing like David. David is sweet and gentle and in his right mind he'd rather hurt himself than anyone else. Dvd's angry and bitter and defensive to the point of violence. He's furious at the world and thinks everyone is out to get him and he wants to hurt them before they can hurt him.

He's— 

He's exactly what someone like David should be, after everything he's been through. But that's so much anger, and even if it's righteous and earned, David doesn't want it. He takes all of those feelings and puts them somewhere else. He dissociates from them so he doesn't have to feel them, so he's Dvd when he feels them. The alter that's strong and powerful and saves David from the things that hurt him. The alter that uses anger as his fuel.

Dvd is bitter and angry so that David can be sweet and gentle. Dvd is hard so David can be soft.

Syd was right. She does know who David is. But David is only the parts of himself that he wants to keep.

Dvd might be irritating and arrogant, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. That doesn't mean his feelings aren't real. Because they're David's feelings even if he doesn't want them. Dvd was right about how they treated David before, imprisoning him and making him worse. He was right that they threw David away even as they tried to help him.

David feels like he deserves to suffer, so he can’t refuse the pain that he’s given. Dvd defends David when David can’t defend himself. It’s not just about physical threats but also emotional ones. Dvd stands up for David whether the threat is from the world or Divad or David himself.

If Dvd is angry with Syd, if he feels hurt by her actions, then that’s because David feels that way, because Dvd is part of David. That’s how Dvd speaks about them, as a collective whole. As three parts of one person with one body. Divad does the same, though he makes more of a distinction, maybe for David’s sake, since David still hasn’t accepted that he’s part of their system.

She told David once that the things that make them crazy make them who they are. Maybe she wouldn’t phrase it that way now, but— She can’t claim to love David if she only loves one-third of him. If she does that, she really is the same as Future Syd, and no matter how much she thinks she’s acting out of love, she’s only going to hurt him.

She turns to her left and looks at the empty space where it sounds like Dvd is coming from. "Dvd, you're right. I'm sorry."

There's a pause, and then a suspicious "What?"

"About Future Syd. If she loved David, she wouldn't have done those things to him. To you. She wouldn't have hurt you. I wouldn't have hurt you. I said I loved you, but I hurt you. I'm sorry."

Syd wishes she could see Dvd's face. She can't hear anything from him.

"You have every right to be mad at me," Syd continues, not sure if her words are helping or making things worse. "And if— If you truly think I'm hurting David by being here, I'll go. The last thing I want to do is get in the way of everything you're doing to help him heal. You and Divad know David better than anyone, even himself. I trust both of you to make the right decisions for him."

'It's a trick,' Dvd thinks. 'She doesn't mean it.' But he doesn't sound convinced, even in his thoughts.

"Come on," Divad whispers, sounding as if they're some distance away. "She's making an effort."

"So she can lower our defenses and crawl back inside our head," Dvd whispers back. "I'm not gonna let her hurt us again."

"We can't send her away," Divad whispers. "Then we'll be the ones hurting David."

Dvd makes a frustrated sound. "This whole week has been nothing but torture. Fuck that shit beetle. If we ever get this crown off our head, we're gonna torture him, see how he likes it."

"Let's not," Divad drawls. "That didn't work out so well last time."

"Thanks for the reminder," Dvd grumbles. "Fine," he says, his voice close again and directed at Syd. "You can stay. But if you hurt David again, you're going right to the top of my 'To Torture' list, you got it?"

"Got it," Syd says. She braces herself. "You know, now that I can hear you, maybe we can talk."

"About David?" Dvd asks, suspicious again.

"About you," Syd says. "Or about anything. Do you— Do you have any hobbies?"

A long pause. "My hobby is keeping David alive."

"That would keep anyone busy," Syd admits. "But you have help now. So maybe you have time for a hobby. If you want one."

Another pause. "Divad and I play cards."

'We do now that we're actually talking to each other again,' Divad thinks. "We could deal you in, but you can't see the cards."

"Maybe there's something else we can do. Something you used to do with David, when he was younger? When you weren't so busy saving his life?"

"We were always busy saving his life," Dvd insists. "But— We'll think about it." He sounds reluctant, but reluctant is better than furious. 

Syd looks to Ptonomy. "Sorry, I think we derailed my group session. We're supposed to be working on Future Syd."

"Anything that improves your relationship with David is us working on Future Syd," Ptonomy says. "Dvd's right, whatever Future Syd claimed, she didn't love David. Maybe she thought she did, but everything she did pushed David right into the future she claimed to want to avoid."

"We still don’t understand why she did all that to us in the first place," Divad says.

Syd considers everything they discussed. "She was from decades in the future, but we have no idea what happens between now and then."

"Farouk died in her timeline," Divad points out. "Maybe him being alive means that timeline is gone."

"Farouk being alive could never be good," Dvd insists. "Even if the timeline has changed, that just means he can make everything worse. And now he knows he can get exactly what he wants."

That is a sobering thought. Farouk was already dangerous when he was just hoping he could use them to end the world. Now he knows he can do it and he’s glimpsed enough of the future to narrow down the possibilities. He can take a shorter path to his sunrise, the direct route, and it won’t take him decades to get there.

She was wrong. Farouk might be patient, but he’s hungry, too. He’s not going to wait decades, not now that he’s had a taste of his feast.

"I think— She didn’t know," Syd decides. "She didn’t know Farouk was the one behind everything. Farouk died in the desert, so in her original timeline— David wasn’t taken. He joined Division 3 with us and hunted for Farouk. It still took us a year to find the monk, but— A year is a long time. A year gave David time to get better, to get stronger. But also to get worse, because we didn’t know the extent of his trauma and he was never forced back into treatment. And then— the monk came to Division 3. Maybe he died, maybe he didn’t. Farouk’s plan was the same. Farouk killed Amy. He sent Lenny. He killed Ptonomy, he tried to kill the Admiral, he took Melanie. Farouk took away the people David relied on and made him unstable. Then they both went to the desert and David smashed Farouk’s head in with a rock. And then at some point, David figured out that Amy was still alive, trapped inside of Lenny, and— And he had to choose. He made the choice and—"

Who would David choose, if forced to choose between his sister and his best friend?

David would choose Amy.

"David killed Lenny," Syd says, and she has no evidence either way but she knows it’s true. "Farouk was long gone but he still made David do it. David gave Amy back her body, but— By then the damage was done. And that made him even worse. I must have— Future Syd must have watched him getting worse and worse, becoming violent and so unstable and so, so powerful. When the time came to stop him, she took him in the moment he was still weak and vulnerable and she put him as close to the end as she could. She didn’t need David to help Farouk. She needed David to be weak enough to lose when he went to the desert. She took a risk, sending him to Farouk, thinking that Farouk would keep David weak, but— She didn’t know Farouk was why David was unstable in the first place, that he was behind everything. She thought she was being merciful, ensuring a quick death, but Farouk used her to create the very future she was trying to avoid."

She pauses, reeling from her own revelation.

"But Farouk’s plan failed," she continues. "He took a risk, too. He needed us to be convinced that David had to be captured and forced into treatment, because that’s what David fears most: being forced back into a place like Clockworks. And David did need help, that was true, that was— That was the rabbit on the hook for us, for me. We took it and it almost worked. If David had been able to break free and he’d taken Lenny with him—"

She doesn’t continue. She doesn’t need to. The damage would have been done, and when it was over, there would have been no one left to save David. And Farouk would have still been alive, ready to close in for the kill. Ready to make his sunrise.

"He’s watching us now, watching us figure out all of this. He’s using everything he learns to make a new plan. Every path we close off, he can just keep finding new paths. But we have to get David better, we all have to all get better, because if we don’t, all the truths we can’t accept will become his weapons."

Syd doesn't want to become the dark future she saw, but there are so many possible dark futures and Farouk is patiently mapping them out, one by one. He’s sated now, bloated on David’s suffering just like he was in Clockworks. But when David wakes up from his pain, so will Farouk. 

It’s terrible that she doesn’t want David to wake up. He’s in so much pain, but that pain is like the crown: it’s the only thing keeping him safe and alive. Like Clockworks kept him safe and alive. But this can’t go on. David can’t suffer forever, he’s already taken too much. So he has to get better. But getting him better means sending him straight into Farouk’s waiting arms. Just like Future Syd did. David will be weak and vulnerable and Farouk will close in for the kill.

"There’s no way out," Syd says, bleakly. "We have to keep going." They have only one choice and it's no choice at all.

"I don’t think I’m gonna have time for that hobby," Dvd says.

Syd can only nod in agreement.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, in a calming voice. "As bad as all of this is, it’s nothing we didn’t already know. It doesn’t change what we have to do. Our priority is still David’s treatment because that’s the only way to keep him from ending the world. And Syd’s treatment will keep her from being used to make that happen. We have to stay focused on the work."

"You’re right," Syd agrees. They have to do the work. The therapy, the memory work, all of it. It’s the only weapon they have. "We can’t afford to get distracted."

"We’re doing what Farouk wants," Ptonomy says. "He told you that. But it’s what we want, too. It’s what David needs. We have to stay focused on what David needs, what you both need. We’ll have another session tomorrow and we’ll work on you. Not Future Syd. We’ll work on you as you are now. So don’t worry about Farouk. Focus on David and focus on yourself."

He’s right. She has to stay focused. They have time before David gets better because David is still so broken. He nearly left them again today because he’s so broken. They have time. Farouk is watching but they have time.


	34. Day 7: If we’re going to save David, we need Lenny.

"Fuck, that was close," Lenny says. "Hey, maybe we should bring Syd into the mainframe. She can help us figure this shit out."

Ptonomy doesn’t deign to answer that. "It was close. Syd’s smart and she understands how Farouk thinks. That’s why Farouk keeps targeting her. We need to keep her focused on helping David and herself so that she doesn’t think about the bigger picture. We need to keep her attention on their pain, just like we’re keeping Farouk’s attention on their pain."

"I wish she could help us," Amy says. They’ve been trying to figure out how to save David so he can save them, but it’s not easy. 

"She is helping us," Ptonomy says. "She’s helping David accept his diagnoses. She's helping him stay with us and work through his trauma. David can’t get better without her."

"It still hurts him every time he looks at her," Amy points out. 

"Everything hurts him right now. But Syd— I think Syd and Lenny are the only way we’re going to get him through what’s waiting for him."

"What do I have to do with it?" Lenny asks.

"Everything. You were the face Farouk wore when David learned about the monster. You were inside him when Farouk possessed him. He used David’s love and trust for you to abuse and control him."

"Hey, I didn’t do any of that," Lenny protests. "I got killed and snatched and then I got raped, over and over."

"And every time Farouk raped you, he raped David using you," Ptonomy replies. "He violated both of you and he used you to make you hurt each other. That’s what he does. If you can’t accept that, you’re going to keep hurting David and you’re going to keep hurting yourself. You’ll be playing right into his hands."

Lenny groans in frustration. "I’m not gonna let you torture me."

"You’re already being tortured," Ptonomy says. "Farouk’s already torturing all of us because we care about David, and we’re torturing David because that’s the only way to help him survive a lifetime of Farouk’s torture."

"It’s not a therapy gangbang, it’s a torture gangbang," Lenny mutters. 

"It is," Ptonomy admits. "But it’s working. David is getting better. So what are you gonna do?"

Lenny glares at him, baring her teeth. "Fuck you," she spits, and stalks off.

Ptonomy sighs and rubs his head. He sits down on a bench-sized transistor and slumps. Amy watches Lenny go, then sits down next to Ptonomy. 

"You’re carrying so much with all of this," Amy soothes. "You need to rest."

"We don’t sleep anymore," Ptonomy says. "We don’t have bodies that get tired."

"Minds get tired, too," Amy says. "You’ve been going non-stop for days, working so hard to save everyone. You need to rest. It— It’s always helped me, to put my mind somewhere else for a while."

"Dissociation runs in families," Ptonomy says, automatically, then he looks at her. "Sorry, I know David was adopted."

"See?" Amy says. "You do need to rest. And David— I think he needs to rest, too. Today was—" She looks at the screen, at David holding tight to Cary’s hand. "He’s still working so hard to stay. We can’t push him any further without setting him back."

"Maybe you’re right," Ptonomy admits. "I still need to prepare for Syd’s session but— David needs a day off. Maybe we all do." He rubs his face and sits up. "But we need Lenny. If we’re going to save David, we need Lenny. I have to talk to her, get her to understand—"

"I’ll talk to her," Amy says. 

Ptonomy gives her a look. He’s obviously trying not to seem skeptical, but she sees it anyway. She’s spent her life trying to understand David so she could help him. She failed, but—

Being dead has changed her. She feels calmer here in the mainframe, without her body. She can see things that were hard to see before, because her body made them hard to see. It got in the way, it made her anxious and afraid. 

It’s still hard, being in this place. She’s never been any good with pain and even if her second death wasn’t physically painful, it still hurt. Watching David suffer hurts, even worse now than it did before because now she knows the truth. She was tortured by Division 3 a year ago but that was a paper cut compared to this. A few leeches are nothing compared to what she did to her baby brother, her Davey. 

Six years. She left him in that place for six years so she could pretend to have a normal life with Ben. David accused her of wanting him to be normal, and it's true, she did. She wanted him to be normal because he insisted that he couldn't be happy as long as he was sick. 

She didn't want to believe that, but she believed it anyway because David believed it, and-- She's always tried to play along with the things David believes. Whether that meant carrying around an empty leash or throwing a stick that an imaginary dog could never bring back. She tries to see the world as David sees it so she can help him survive, so she can reach through his fear and hold his hand and help him carry his pain.

But it was too much for her, helping him alone. It's too much for anyone to carry all that pain. It's too much for David and that's why she has three little brothers instead of just one. It's too much for Ptonomy to save them all by himself, but that's why he has her now, her and Lenny.

Lenny hasn't had anyone. That's what she said, that she's been alone. She doesn't even have David anymore because David can't stand the pain she gives him. It's so bad he can't bear to exist if he thinks about that pain.

Amy knows what that feels like. She knows what it's like to lose the person you love most because he can't bear to think about you. Syd understands it, too, but-- Syd needs to stay focused on the work she has laid out for her. And Lenny's already been horrifically used by Farouk. If anyone deserves to have their most private thoughts protected from the monster, it's her.

So Lenny needs help and that help has to come from inside the mainframe. Ptonomy has to focus on the work he's laid out for himself. So that means Amy has to be the one to step up and help. Even if Lenny hates her for what she did to David by putting him in Clockworks and leaving him there for six years. Lenny needs her like David needs her. Amy might not be a therapist, she might have made mistakes with David, but she wants to learn from those mistakes so she doesn't make them again. Maybe helping Lenny will help her, too. And then they can both help David, and David can finally stop the monster so it will never hurt any of them ever again.

§

Amy gives Lenny some time before she goes to find her. David needed that, sometimes, the space to calm himself before he could let anyone else come close. Now she knows that he must have been letting his alters calm him. Or maybe David wasn't David at all at those times, maybe he was Dvd or Divad or both, pretending to be David so no one would know anything was wrong.

Everyone always knew something was wrong. Like Syd, she wishes David had just told them. But-- He did try to tell them. He tried to tell Syd what he was feeling, what he'd been through. He tried to tell Amy and their parents that there was a monster inside him, hurting him. He tried to tell them that King was scaring him, that the imaginary, ever-present dog had changed from adoring to menacing. He tried to tell Amy that he was unhappy at Clockworks, because every time she saw him he asked if he could please, please leave.

David tried to tell everyone a lot of things. He blames himself for not saying more, but-- They didn't want to hear the things that he did say. They had their own ideas about him and if the things he said disagreed with them, well-- He was sick. He was unstable. He kept secrets and that made him a liar. And he knew. He heard their thoughts about him and all that did was make him blame himself more. Because he trusted them more than he trusted himself, so obviously they were right. Obviously he-- He deserved whatever he got because that was what everyone believed about him. 

She only knows any of that because she heard it. She's been so close to David all his life, and she only understands him now because she was finally forced to listen in a way she couldn't deny. The mainframe and Oliver's relay make it impossible not to listen. She hears all of David's thoughts and she's watched all the recordings and-- 

She's thought a lot about her mistakes, and the biggest one of all was that she just didn't listen. She didn't hear him, she only heard-- Her version of him. Her David was her sick baby brother who couldn't take care of himself. He needed her to take care of him, to support him, to decide what was best for him. But she could never have made the right decisions for him because she didn't know what he needed because she didn't know anything about what was actually going on inside his head. It was all-- Invisible. Private. Unknowable, even, because without telepathy, how could she understand what he was experiencing when it was so beyond anything she'd experienced herself?

He tried to tell them, but he was too sick to explain his sickness. He was too afraid to explain his fear. It trapped him the same way she was trapped inside her own head, unable to reach the world, unable to tell anyone what she was going through. 

She couldn't save herself from what Farouk did to her. David can't save himself either. He never could, even though he tried so hard he split himself in three. They'll get him out, she believes that, she has faith in him and in what they're doing. And when he's not trapped anymore, he'll save them and finish saving himself.

But they can't save him without Lenny.

It's easy for her to find Lenny. She just has to follow the music. Navigating the mainframe isn't easy for her, but Ptonomy helped her practice enough that she can get around. She reaches into the data streams and concentrates, searching the local signals, tuning through the channels bands.

Lenny listens to a lot of music. Her tastes are-- Eclectic. Sometimes it's frothy pop, sometimes it's harsh, ear-splitting metal. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to it, except that she never listens to anything sung in English. She only likes music in other languages. It could be anything from anywhere and Lenny will listen to it, as long as she can't understand the words.

Lenny was in Clockworks as long as David was. Maybe music was how she travelled the world when she couldn't even go outside.

That's the thing about Lenny. Whatever David went through in Clockworks, Lenny went through it, too. But she didn't have mutant alters who could protect her. She didn't have a sister visiting her every month. She was there before David got there, and she only got out because she died and had her soul taken by the monster. 

Amy doesn't know if Lenny blames herself the way David does. She doesn't know if Lenny thinks she's a broken plate that was thrown away. She can't hear Lenny's thoughts. She only knows the little she does about Lenny because she knows it about David.

So she's going to have to ask to learn the rest. And more importantly, she's going to have to listen. 

Assuming she can get Lenny to talk to her at all.

She finds Lenny lounging in one of the mainframe's countless, nearly identical rooms. Memory blocks, Ptonomy called them. They exist in the computer's virtual space where processes and data are copied so they can be used. This particular memory block is almost vibrating from the sound of a driving rock beat and what sounds like young girls singing intensely in Japanese. Lenny is lying on the floor with her legs propped up against a wall. She has her eyes closed and she's slapping the floor with the beat.

"Hey," Amy says, leaning over Lenny.

Lenny opens her eyes and glares at her. She lifts one hand and raises her middle finger, then goes back to listening to the music.

Yeah, this is not going to be easy. Lenny might have gone through a lot of the same things David did, but they're almost nothing alike. Amy understands why Ptonomy was skeptical. But she still has to try to get through to Lenny. David needs her to try.

Amy sits down on the floor next to Lenny. She listens to the music. It's-- It's not the kind of thing Amy would ever voluntarily listen to. Amy's always liked soothing music: classical pieces, folk music, people singing quietly about their feelings. This is-- loud and grating and dissonant. It's the opposite of relaxing, but Lenny's enjoying it. Lenny's using it to feel better.

The song ends and something else starts playing. She can't even pin down where it's from, but it sounds-- French? And German? It's dance music, with a heavy bass that goes right into her. It's less grating than the Japanese song, at least. She can kinda get into it. Not that she's ever been much for dance music. 

The next track comes on. Another shift, this time to-- something Spanish? No, Latin American. Male voices and drums and acoustic guitars. It's pleasant and easy. She closes her eyes and sways with the beat. 

The music stops. She opens her eyes and Lenny is sitting up and staring at her. Amy looks back, calmly.

"I know what you're doing," Lenny says, annoyed. "I heard you talking to Ptonomy."

Of course she did. The mainframe isn't built for privacy. "I want to help, if I can."

"You can't," Lenny says. "Not unless you can get me out."

"I want to get out, too," Amy admits. She doesn't bother to say the rest. They both know that even if they find a way to download them into new bodies, that will only put them right back in harm's way with everyone else. They both know that until Farouk is dead, no one will be safe, that even the mainframe isn't really safe. And they can't wait for Division 3 to build a weapon, even assuming Farouk would let that happen now that he's back in his body and not trapped in David's head. He might be distracted by David's suffering, but he's not stupid.

There's only one way they'll ever get out. There's only one person who can save them. He's the last person who should have to fight the monster. And Lenny's the last person who should have to save him so he can do it.

Amy reaches out and touches the wall, brings up the feed of David sleeping in the lab. Syd's sitting with him now, holding his hand while Cary and Kerry sleep, and David's holding on like he'll die if he lets go. Syd looks tired, worried, determined.

Lenny looks at the feed and then turns away. Amy reaches out to turn off the feed, but then decides to leave it up.

"It's not fair, what happened to you," Amy says. "None of this is your fault. You were killed, and-- And you shouldn't have to bear any responsibility for what happened after that."

"No shit," Lenny says. She glances at the screen, then looks back at Amy, challenging, wary.

"Do you want to--" Amy begins.

"No," Lenny says. "I am done talking about anything. I did my time. You wanna use me as some kind of prop? Get in line."

Lenny's angry. Amy makes herself listen to her anger and not react to it. Of course Lenny's angry, she has every right to be angry. Farouk used her as a prop to hurt David and everyone else. She doesn't want to be used that way again, even if it's to save herself and the world.

The mainframe isn't built for privacy. They both heard what Syd said about the other timeline, they had no choice but to hear it. Farouk used them both as props, and if Ptonomy hadn't killed them, David would have had to choose. Syd thinks he would have chosen Amy.

She's right. He would have chosen her. He would have killed Lenny. He didn't, but he would have, if he had to choose.

Farouk wasn't even alive in that timeline, and he still found ways to hurt all of them so much. That timeline doesn't even exist anymore, that never happened and never will, and it's still hurting them.

"He should have chosen you," Amy says.

Lenny narrows her eyes. 

"In the other timeline. David should have let you keep my body. He should have put me out of my misery and let you live."

"None of that happened," Lenny says, dismissive.

"No, but Ptonomy and Syd still killed you to save me," Amy says. "To save both of us, but-- They wouldn't have put you here if it wasn't for me. It's my fault they killed you, that David would have killed you. I'm sorry."

Lenny looks at David. "It's his fault," Lenny says. "The shit beetle."

"And it's mine," Amy says. "And it's David's and Ptonomy's and-- Farouk used all of us to do terrible things we didn't want to do. I thought I was doing the right thing by putting David into Clockworks. And it was and it wasn't and-- I know that in that timeline, David didn't want to make that choice. But he felt he had to. Whatever happened-- He couldn't let me suffer the way he suffered. He had to get me out, he had to try to save me. But it must have been too late to save me. I'm-- I'm not good at prisons. I can't-- If I had to go through any of what you have gone through, what David's gone through, I-- I wouldn't have survived. Not the way you and David survived."

She wouldn't have. She would have been-- 

"I helped end the world," Amy realizes, her throat tight. "David saved me and I made him end the world." She doesn't have any proof and she doesn't want any, but she knows it. She knows how much it hurts him to see her upset. She knows he can't bear it. He couldn't tell her any of the awful things that happened to him because he didn't want her to cry. He blames himself for so much. If all of those terrible things happened, if he killed Lenny to save her and then she was-- Broken and mad and-- 

It would have destroyed him. He would have been-- He would have lost control in his grief and pain, just like he did when Farouk killed her, but it would have been so much worse. He would have wanted to make everything go away, to dissociate the entire world from himself, and that's what he did.

"Shit," Lenny curses. "Don't cry all over me."

"Sorry," Amy sniffs. She tries to remember how to make a tissue box, the way Ptonomy showed her. She can't remember.

Lenny sighs and makes one for her and hands it over.

"Thank you," Amy says, and wipes her eyes, blows her nose.

"This is all so fucked up," Lenny says, frustrated. "I'm tired of being his doll. That's all we are to him. We're not real. We don't exist. If he doesn't need us, we're just-- Things in drawers he can take out and use and put away. He doesn't even care about David. He's obsessed with him but David's just another doll. I'm not gonna let him use me again."

"Then don't," Amy says. "Help us save David."

Lenny gives a bitter laugh. "That's what he wants us to do. David's right, what's the point? You think this time is different? I know that monster better than anyone and trust me, sister, this ain't different."

"It has to be," Amy insists. "If it's not-- Then what should we do? Let David kill himself, and kill ourselves too so Farouk can't torture us for the rest of our lives?"

"We're already dead."

"That didn't stop him before."

That makes Lenny go still. "Shit. _Shit._ Goddamn it." She kicks the wall and presses her palm against her forehead. "Fuck!"

"Yeah," Amy agrees. 

Lenny kicks the wall again. She stands up and kicks it and kicks it. But it doesn't so much as scuff the virtual walls of the mainframe. Nothing in this place is real. They're not really in a room, they're not really alive. They're--

"We're dead," Amy says. She stands up and Lenny stops kicking the wall to look at her. "But we're real, we exist, we-- We're not going to let him use us to end the world. You're right, Farouk hasn't changed. He'll never change. But we can. And if we change, we're the ones who make this different."

"Don't ever pep talk me again," Lenny says, crossing her arms. But she's wavering. She just needs a little push, like she did with the blue octopus and the desert.

"Don't do this for David," Amy says, realizing the words as she says them. "Do this for yourself. Make sure you'll never be his doll again."

Lenny doesn't answer that. She still has her arms crossed defiantly. But-- Amy lived inside of her head, just for a while. She knows a little bit about how Lenny works that doesn't have anything to do with David. And she knows what it looks like when Lenny changes her mind. She's glad she can see it from the outside this time, instead of the inside.


	35. Day 8: The Haller family.

There’s someone holding David’s hand. 

That’s the first thing he’s aware of as he surfaces from sleep. His hand aches, the muscles overtired, but he doesn’t want to let go. 

The second thing he realizes is that the hand he’s holding isn’t human. He cracks opens his eyes. It’s the Vermillion. 

“Ptonomy?” David asks, muzzy from sleep. How did he end up holding Ptonomy’s hand? The last thing he remembers— What’s the last thing he remembers?

“Morning, sleepyhead.” It’s not Ptonomy’s voice coming out of the Vermillion, it’s Amy’s.

“Amy?”

The memory work. King and— David’s eyes open wide. He almost went away. He— He didn’t. He touches his free hand to his chest, feeling his body. He’s still here. How did he— 

It’s fuzzy, but— He remembers being touched, being— Held. Anchored. Kerry and Cary and— Syd. He remembers Syd looking at him, holding his hand. 

He sits up, suddenly, and a wave of dizziness stills him. He looks over anyway and sees that Syd is sleeping in her cot beside him. 

Oh, he feels— He need to lie down.

“Take it easy,” Amy soothes, helping him back down. “Everything’s okay. Just rest.”

David has a thousand arguments against that, but he doesn’t have the strength to voice them. He doesn’t need to voice them anyway, not when Amy can just hear his thoughts.

But Amy doesn’t react. 

Amy?

“Oliver’s asleep,” Amy says, quietly, reacting not to his thoughts but to his confusion. “Everyone’s asleep. It’s just us early birds.”

Early birds. That’s what she would call them when he came into her room before her alarm and woke her up. Except— Did that happen? If Amy remembers it, it must have happened. Or some of it happened, somehow.

He feels very— Insubstantial. Despite the fact that he’s still in his body and present in it. He should think about the memory work and King and— But he doesn’t want to think about any of it, not right now. He’s not sure there’ll be anything left of him if he digs any deeper. 

Amy can’t hear any of what he’s thinking, not until Oliver wakes up. He never thought he would miss that but he does. There’s so much that feels impossible to say aloud, especially to her. Saying it aloud makes it— Real. Not that his thoughts aren’t real, but— 

Are his alters asleep? Do they need to sleep? If he’s three separate people all the time, they must need to sleep. Unless it’s only his body that needs to sleep? He knows they can be awake when he isn’t. Maybe it’s like astral projecting. He’s been outside of his body for days at a time and didn’t experience sleep. Did Oliver not sleep in his ice cube for twenty years? No wonder he lost his mind. 

“We’re awake now, noisy,” says Divad, from over on the sofa. “We nap when we can. We don’t need much.”

Dvd yawns, still slumped over in one of the loveseats. “Can’t let down our guard,” he mutters, but he puts his head down and closes his eyes. 

“Don’t worry about us, talk to Amy,” Divad says. 

Amy. Right. He hasn’t said anything aloud for minutes and she’s waiting. What was she talking about? Oh right, early birds. 

“Did we catch many worms?” David asks. 

Amy gives an amused huff. “We did when Dad took us fishing. You remember that, right?”

He does. He remembers holding the rod, waiting and watching the water. He remembers Amy beside him. He remembers their father towering above them, the sun silhouetting his face. He thinks of Philly complaining that he didn't have any photos of his family.

"Amy, do you-- Are there any pictures of us? Family photos?"

"Of course," Amy says. "They're back at the house, but-- I'm sure Clark will get them for us. You used to have some, you took them with you to college. Did you--" She hesitates. 

"I don't know," David admits. "Farouk must have-- He must have made me get rid of them, somehow." He waits for the alters to correct him or expand on what happened, but they don't. They didn't want to talk about what happened in college before, either. It's probably-- Bad. Very bad.

Probably best not to open that particular can of worms right now. Or ever.

"Well, once we get them back we'll look at them together," Amy says. "Maybe they'll help you remember the good things. There were a lot of good things, David. I promise."

"They weren't real," David says, though he shouldn't. He doesn't want to upset her, but-- He's already upset her. She's heard everything he's been thinking, so many awful things. But she's still here, holding his hand, trying to help.

"They were," Amy insists. "I remember. I have so many photos of you, of us. Of our family together, being happy. I'm sure there's a picture somewhere of us going fishing. You were always so proud when we caught a fish, even if it was too small to keep."

David remembers-- Holding a net. The way the fish would flap around in it, trying to get back to the water. He feels bad for them now. It feels cruel, pulling them out of everything they knew, confusing them and trapping them and--

He knows what Amy is doing. She's trying to help him reconnect with who he used to be, if that was who he used to be. But even the good memories are poisoned. Farouk only left them behind so he could use them against him, so he could manipulate him and trick him. 

"I can't," he says. "I can't remember."

"Of course you can," Amy says.

"I can't," David insists. "They were-- They're a trick. I relied on them to survive but all that did was make me worse. I can't-- I can't rely on them if I want to get better." Philly was right. He doesn't have a past. The person he is now never had a past. He shouldn't look at the photos, he shouldn't try to salvage the unsalvageable. There are things he's lost that he's never getting back, and he's never getting back any of that. Trying to remember is just-- It's just erasing him. He has so little left and he loses another piece of himself every time he tries. 

"Okay," Amy says, accepting. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to today. No memory work, no sessions. We're just going to spend the day together. Can we still do that?"

She asks it so-- He doesn't want to remember anything but-- She asks it like she always asked him, when he was upset. If it was okay to be with him, if she could-- If she could hug him. In the memories he can't trust and in the ones after college and now. She's his only constant, the only thing he knows is real through his entire life.

And she's-- He can't see her, he can't touch her. She's barely here at all, just like him. But they're both here and she's holding his hand. It's not her hand but she's still holding him with it. She's suffering just as much as he is and she's holding on for him.

He reaches for her and she doesn't need him to ask. She hugs him and he hugs her back. Her body is hard and artificial but-- It feels more like she's really inside it, the way she's holding him. The way she's always held him.

It doesn’t undo anything. It doesn’t change the fact that she hurt him or that she died because of him. But he needs her and he doesn’t want to be angry and— She know how he feels and— She still loves him, she’s still his sister, he still loves her. 

He doesn’t want to lose her. There’s so little left of both of them. They can’t afford to lose each other and— The past doesn’t matter, whether it’s real or not, it doesn’t matter. They’re here now and he doesn’t want to lose her, not to Farouk and not to himself.

When he finally lets her go, he wipes his eyes and tries to smile for her. It’s wobbly but it’s a smile. The Vermillion smiles back, and it’s not natural but— He knows she’s trying. He knows she means it. 

“How about we go get breakfast for everyone?” Amy suggests. 

“Can we— Should we do that?” David asks, uncertain. It was one thing to be escorted to the garden. He’s not sure if he should— They probably shouldn’t trust him with any kind of responsibility, even if it’s just carrying some trays. They said he wasn’t a prisoner anymore, but— He still is, maybe not to his friends but to everyone else here. He’s not a prisoner of the lab but he’s a prisoner of Division 3. Clark made that clear. He doubts they want him roaming around.

“Ptonomy said it's fine," Amy assures him. "As long as one of us is with you, and I'm with you."

She is.

§

They are early birds, even for Division 3. David's grateful for that, that there aren't many people around to gawp at him. There are soldiers on patrol and a few scientists still bleary-eyed before their coffee fix, but none of them do more than give him a long, curious glance. And then of course there's the Vermillion. It's weird seeing the other Vermillion now. He knows they're just androids, just extensions of Admiral Fukuyama's mainframe mind, but-- It's hard not to see Ptonomy and Amy and-- And Lenny inside them.

He still hasn't talked to Lenny. She lost her body and he can't face her. She probably hates him for that. He deserves her hate. So many terrible things have happened to her because of him. She shouldn't have taken pity on him when they met in Clockworks. She died twice, she was tortured in-- He doesn't know how many ways. She was trapped in his head and then she was trapped in Oliver's head and-- He knows why she ran away, when he freed her. They saw that she would run away. He and his alters, they made the plan that way because they knew Lenny would want to get as far away from all of this as she could, and they knew she would get as far as the blue octopus. So they sent Cary and Kerry to her.

They should have let her go. He would have lost, but-- She would have been free and alive and-- And now she's trapped again and just as barely there as he is, as Amy is. That's what they all are: ghostly prisoners of one thing or another. Insubstantial.

And speaking of insubstantial, Divad and Dvd are enjoying walking through said soldiers and scientists and Vermillion. Everyone passes through them like they aren't there at all, because of course they aren't. The alters walk through the glass walls of the cafeteria ahead of them and walk through the tables.

"Stop it," David hisses under his breath.

In response to that, they walk into the curving counter and stand in the way of the lazy river. The little boats of food pass right through them.

"That's-- That's unsanitary," David whispers at them, and a man sitting in a corner table glances up at him.

"It can't be unsanitary if none of it is touching us," Divad points out.

Dvd crouches down through the counter and opens his mouth. A waffle boat passes through his head. "Mmm, delicious. We should get some waffles. Hey Amy, get us waffles.”

Amy can’t hear him. She walks up to the service window and speaks with the cafeteria staff. Then she walks back to David.

“It’ll just be a few minutes,” Amy tells him. “Let’s sit down.”

They sit at a table, Amy on one side and David on the other. Dvd sits next to David and David scoots over. 

“Ah, could you?” David asks Amy, motioning for her to make room for Divad. 

“Oh, of course.” 

And then they’re all sitting together. “The Haller family,” David says aloud, feeling utterly ridiculous. His not-dead digital sister and his hallucinatory, imaginary identical brothers. And he’s not any better: an amnesiac, mentally-damaged torture victim who can’t remember two of them and is afraid to remember the other. 

"I think it's nice," Amy says. "It would be nicer if Oliver was awake. I want us to be able to sit together and talk. We are family, David. With Mom and Dad gone, we're all we have left."

David picks up the salt shaker and stares at it. There's rice mixed in with the salt. He thinks it’s to keep it from clumping. "I know," he says.

He still feels terrible about missing Dad's funeral. Even if-- Especially if he had a better relationship with his father than he remembers. His adoptive father. He has no idea who his real father is, and-- He doesn't know if he wants to know. 

Farouk knows who his father is. They fought on the astral plane and then Farouk looked for him, and instead of attacking him he took his revenge on his father's defenseless infant son. David's real father must have been too powerful for Farouk. He _was_ too powerful for him. He defeated Farouk even though he had his body, and everyone said Farouk would be unstoppable once he had his body back.

Except he was stopped, once, by David's mysterious and powerful father. Not completely, he didn't finish what he started, but-- 

It probably doesn't matter. David can't even use his powers, and if Lenny hadn't been there to shoot the Choke, Farouk would have won in the desert. They saw that when they made the plan. Farouk's never been afraid of David's powers. He wasn't afraid when they met face-to-face for the first time, and he wasn't afraid when they fought in La Désolé. Even if David has more raw power, Farouk's been mastering his powers for centuries. David's never been able to stop Farouk, even in the life where he did know there was a monster inside of him, where he knew about his powers from the start and used them. He and his alters couldn't even kill a fake dog.

"We did kill it," Dvd insists. "King never came back."

"That was just another trick," David says, grumpily. Like how his entire childhood is just another trick. His entire life, really. 

"What was?" Amy asks.

David finally looks up from the salt shaker. "It doesn't matter," he says, not wanting to talk about King or any of his memories and not-memories. "I'm sorry, I'm not very good company."

"We don't have to talk," Amy says. "I'm just happy we're together again. I missed you when you were gone. I missed you when you were in Clockworks. I-- You know, when you showed up at my house on Halloween-- Ben wanted to send you back right away. We knew they didn't actually let you out. But--"

David meets her eyes, the Vermillion's eyes. 

"I promised Ben I'd call the hospital and tell them where you were, but only if-- Only if you were in danger of hurting yourself or anyone else. I thought maybe-- You'd been so much happier, that last year, calmer and-- I thought maybe we wouldn't have to bring you back."

David stares at her. "You wanted me to stay?" he asks, his voice small.

"Of course I did," Amy says. She reaches one of the Vermillion's hands across the table, and he takes it, hesitant. "I never wanted to send you away in the first place, I just-- I didn't know what else to do."

He looks down at their hands. "I heard your thoughts. You were afraid." He didn't know that they were really her thoughts, not then. He didn't trust the things he heard. He didn't know he was a mutant and a mind reader. He thought he was crazy. He's still crazy, just-- Not the same crazy.

"I was," Amy admits. "I wish Mom and Dad had trusted me. I wouldn't have told anyone. I would have protected you. Not knowing-- It was like living in a haunted house, sometimes. I didn't want to admit to myself that-- That things were wrong. We were already dealing with so much, with you and Mom both being sick."

"Mom was sick?" David asks. He doesn't remember that.

Amy goes still, and then her grip on his hand tightens. "David, Mom was-- Don't you remember anything about her?"

David looks to his alters. Divad and Dvd look back at him, and it's obvious from their faces that they don't want to have to be the ones to tell him any of this, whatever he's forgotten.

"Apparently not," David says. "Maybe you shouldn't. If it's-- Upsetting. Maybe you shouldn't tell me." Not that he feels any better knowing he's forgotten even more. He's not so much a five-hundred piece puzzle with only fifteen pieces as a box with three puzzle pieces and one of the pieces is from the wrong puzzle.

"Okay," Amy says. "We don't have to talk about Mom. You don't have to do anything you don't want to today."

David knows she wants to tell him. He doesn't have to be a mind reader or even see her face to know that. It hurts her to not tell him. But he can't-- He can't take anything else. He has to say no, even if it hurts her. If he wants to get better, he needs to stop hurting himself.

The bell rings at the service window. "That's us," Amy says. She slides through Divad before he has a chance to move out of the way.

She's upset. She wouldn't have done that to Divad if she wasn't upset, even though she can't see him or hear him. David should have just let her tell him and taken whatever suffering was coming for him. He'll have to find out the truth eventually. It's going to hurt no matter what. He's putting her through this for nothing.

"She said you don't have to," Divad reminds him. "It can wait. You need to take it easy, you're still not recovered from yesterday."

"You know what it is," David says, annoyed. "You both know. Just tell me so I can get it over with."

"We're here to protect you, not hurt you," Divad says. "No memory work today. That includes this."

David turns to Dvd. "You never agree with Divad. You don't like Ptonomy. You don’t even like Amy.”

Dvd makes a face. "They've got a point. You nearly went away."

"She's my mother," David insists. "Adoptive mother. I should know about her."

"You should know about us, too," Dvd says. "It hurts us that you don't, but we put up with it because we know you're not ready. Amy will be fine. If you keep trying to remember everything, you'll go away again and we do not want you to go away, you got it?"

"David?" Amy calls, from the window. "Can you come give me a hand?"

David glares at his alters, and then deliberately slides through Dvd. Dvd makes an affronted noise, but David ignores him and goes over to Amy.

"One tray for you and two for me," Amy says, cheerfully. 

David knows her false cheer when he hears it, he's heard it enough over the years, whether the memories were real or not. But he also knows they're right, all of them. He can't take any more shocks right now, no matter how bad he feels about not knowing. He's insubstantial enough as it is. If he finds out anything more, the puzzle box will be completely empty and then what?

That doesn't bear thinking about either.

They carry the trays back and no one says anything. Divad and Dvd don't walk through anyone. David tries very hard not to feel like everyone's bad mood is his fault, but it's completely his fault. He really does find all kinds of new ways to ruin everything.

David follows Amy into the lab, eyes on the tray to make sure everything stays steady. And then he looks up and the tray slips from his nerveless fingers.

"Whoa there," Ptonomy says, catching the tray before it falls. 

It's Ptonomy. Not Ptonomy in a Vermillion. It's actually Ptonomy in a dressy suit. David gawps at him, unable to speak.

Ptonomy puts the tray down on the table. He takes David's limp hand and pulls him into a chair. Ptonomy's hands are cold and hard, like the Vermillion's hands.

"The Admiral had this made for me," Ptonomy explains. "It came in early this morning."

David sees now that Ptonomy's skin, his eyes, his hair— They're his, but-- Artificial. Convincing but unnatural.

"I like to think of it as a custom suit," Ptonomy says, and smiles. It really looks like his smile. His voice still sounds filtered, but it's not musical anymore. "They're making ones for Amy and Lenny, too. They'll be ready soon. I prefer my mustache with a beard and I'm sure they'll be happier looking like themselves. Having three identical androids in the lab at once would be confusing."

"Three?" David echoes.

"Three," Ptonomy says. "Not yet. When you're ready. You don't have to do anything you don't want to today. But it's not fair for us to leave Lenny on her own, right?"

"No," David agrees, faintly. He can't stop staring at Ptonomy. It's really like he's alive again. He’s not, but-- It really feels like he is.

Amy sits down in the chair in front of him. "I'll have mine soon," she says, and now her happiness is real. "You'll be able to see me."

He'll be able to see her. Not _her_ her, but-- It'll be like she's alive again, like Ptonomy is alive. 

He reaches for her and she doesn't need him to ask. She hugs him and he hugs her back. This body isn't hers and the new one won't be either, but-- It will feel like she's really inside it. She'll be alive and she'll hold him in her arms, _her_ arms, the way she's always held him.


	36. Day 8: She’s not used to having to share.

Ptonomy’s alive and everyone is so happy to see him. Cary and Kerry hug him warmly, and even Syd makes an effort, though hugging clearly doesn’t come naturally to her. 

They know he’s not really alive, that his new body isn’t a living body. But the illusion is convincing and they want to be convinced. They want to have Ptonomy back the way they used to have him. Ptonomy wants it, too. Amy knows all of this has been so much harder for him than he’s let on. So she’s happy for all of them. 

They’re all happy to see her, too, even though the Vermillion’s appearance keeps them at a distance. Amy understands. It’s very strange for her. All of this is far beyond the life she knew but she’s trying to adapt. Not just for David, but for herself. 

She lost her life, she lost Ben. Her old existence is as dead as her old body. But now she can be with them: David’s friends, her friends. She was only just starting to get to know them when David was taken, and then she lost touch with everyone but Syd during her year in witness protection. It’ll be easier once she gets her own custom android body and looks like herself again, but for now she can be with them and talk to them, and that’s more than she’s been able to do: exiled from the lab by David’s treatment, unable to do anything but watch.

“So you’re staying with us now?” Cary asks.

“We are,” Amy says, gladly. “We’re still in mainframe, of course, but— Ptonomy said it would be better for all of us to be together as much as possible.”

“Absolutely,” Cary agrees. “And you’ve been through so much. I’m so sorry about all of it. Losing Ben and— Everything you’ve suffered.” He reaches out and takes her hand, gives it a comforting squeeze. “‘I’m sorry we couldn’t protect you.”

Amy glances at David, but he’s distracted, eating his breakfast and staring at Ptonomy like he’ll vanish if David looks away for too long.

“You did the best you could,” Amy says, forgiving them. If she could go back, she would have insisted on staying with them. She wouldn’t have tried to go back to her old, normal life, even as she was forced to give up her home and her job and her friends and move far away to the desert. The monster could have got to her no matter where they put her. If she’d stayed, she could have helped somehow. She wouldn’t have been alone.

Ben wouldn’t have liked it. He didn’t want anything to do with David’s strange new mutant friends. But Ben is gone. He’s never coming back. He didn’t have his soul ripped from his body and then shoved back inside it too deep to be found. He’s just dust that’s been blown away.

Grief catches her unprepared. In the mainframe, her face crumples, but the Vermillion remains impassive. She can’t hide her tight, pained gasp, and David turns to her.

“Amy?” he asks, immediately concerned.

“I’m okay,” Amy assures him. She doesn’t want to give him anything else to be upset about. He isn’t even well enough to hear about their mother.

God, she can’t believe Farouk made him forget their mother. Amy is horrified that she didn’t realize it sooner. David changed when he was at college, he got so much worse, but they didn’t talk about Mom. They stopped talking about Mom after she died.

Amy’s starting to realize that there were a lot of things their family didn’t talk about.

David looks at her, searching the Vermillion’s face for all the ways Amy’s face used to give her feelings away. But he doesn’t find them. She doesn’t know how to put them there and she doesn’t want him to see them. His fear of her pain has stopped him from telling her so much. It’s better for him if he doesn’t see it.

He’s so— It breaks her heart, seeing him suffering. Even without hearing his thoughts. He’s— Haggard, from everything he’s been through, everything they’re putting him through. It’s taken so much from him. He’s trying to hide how terrified he is, but he can’t. David’s never been able to hide his feelings. He might have kept the reasons for his feelings secret, but he couldn’t hide the feelings themselves. They’ve always been undeniable, no matter how much they all wanted to deny them.

Amy smiles for him and the worry eases from his eyes. It doesn’t go away; he won’t stop worrying about her until she’s back in a living body and safe from the monster. But none of that is going to happen right now. He smiles back as much as he can. 

Her Davey. Her sweet little brother. They have to save him, the way they should have saved him. 

Amy suddenly feels someone staring at her. It’s Kerry. Amy never really had a chance to talk to Kerry before. Amy was just a puppet Farouk controlled in the fake Clockworks, and then when they were freed, Kerry was standoffish, in the middle of some kind of fight with Cary. And then David was gone and the monster was free and Amy had to leave. 

Amy knows a little about Cary and Kerry. She knows they’re— Twins, somehow. That they share a body and that Cary was on the outside until Farouk changed them. Ptonomy caught her up on that and she’s seen Kerry talking to David, bonding with him. They’ve been good for each other. Amy’s grateful that Kerry helped David when no one else could. 

None of that explains why Kerry is staring at her now, in a strange, silent mix of curious and hostile. 

“Kerry, is something wrong?” Amy asks her. She has plenty of experience with strange, difficult people. Sometimes the best way to help them is to get them talking. She wishes she’d got David to talk more. Maybe if she had—

“No,” Kerry says, like an accusation. She looks at David, then stares at Amy again. 

Cary turns to Kerry, concerned. “Kerry, don’t be rude. Amy’s David’s sister and our friend.”

“I know,” Kerry says, defensive. 

“Kerry?” David asks, worrying about her now.

Kerry settles, smiling for him. “I’m okay. It’s just, um— The lab’s kinda full. I’m not— Used to so many people.”

David looks around the table and so does Amy. Oliver’s asleep — not that Kerry could hear the alters anyway — and the only new person at the table is Amy. 

David looks to Amy, realizing the same thing. He’s confused. He has no idea why Amy’s presence should upset Kerry. 

Amy looks at Cary, and she sees him realizing the answer as she realizes it herself.

“Kerry, why don’t you go take a break?” Cary suggests. When she hesitates, he says: “David will be fine.”

“I know that,” Kerry huffs. But she looks at David again, and it’s obvious that she doesn’t know that. She shows her feelings as guilelessly as David, and she’s very worried about him because David is extremely far from fine.

Kerry looks to Cary and he gives her an encouraging smile. “If you need a break, you can go. It’s okay. We’re all here with him.”

Kerry looks up at the loft where the exercise equipment is. She looks at the door to the hallway. She looks at Amy and David. “I’m gonna stay,” she decides, crossing her arms. 

“Okay,” Cary agrees. He puts down his fork and gives an exaggerated stretch. “I could use a walk after that breakfast. Amy, now that you’re not stuck in the mainframe, how about we stretch our legs?”

Amy is still very much stuck in the mainframe, but she plays along. “That sounds lovely. You can show me around.”

“All the glorious sights of Division 3,” Cary jokes, warmly. “We won’t be gone long,” he assures Kerry. 

Kerry shrugs. “I’ll keep everyone here safe,” she assures them, but she’s looking at David as she says it. 

Amy gives David a reassuring touch to his shoulder, then follows Cary out of the lab. They walk until the lab door is out of sight, then he stops her. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Cary says. “Kerry’s— She’s not used to having to share.”

“David means a lot to her,” Amy says. “He has that effect on people.”

“That he does,” Cary admits. “He means a lot to all of us. But that’s no excuse for her being jealous of your presence. She of all people should understand the importance of sibling relationships.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Amy offers. “From what I understand, you were all she had. If she’s treating David like he’s you—“ She thinks about how hard it was to let David leave for college. How hard it was to let him walk into Clockworks, even though it was the only way she had to save his life.

“She’s been— Dealing with a great number of difficulties,” Cary says. “Our physical ages are— Circumstances mean our time together is limited. Perhaps she’s— Attaching herself to David to prepare herself for my absence.”

“I’m sorry,” Amy says, because that’s all she can think to say. 

“Oh, I’m healthy as an ox,” Cary assures her. “And according to the Admiral, I’m still alive decades from now, so really there’s no cause for concern. But Kerry will be alive for many decades more, god willing. She doesn’t want to face them alone. David is— He’s the first friend she’s ever made. The first she’s made for herself and not simply because— Because that person was my friend first.”

“And she doesn’t know how to share,” Amy echoes. “She’ll have to learn. David needs both of us. And David— She has nothing to worry about. He’s not going to ignore her just because I’m here.”

“I think she knows that,” Cary says. “She used to be very jealous about me, but she learned that I would always be here for her. She could always go inside me. With David— She doesn’t have that connection, that certainty. She doesn’t even have it with me anymore. She’s trying to embrace being outside, but— It’s a difficult time for her.”

“Is there any way I can help?” Amy asks. "I don't mind. I can't just-- Sit around waiting for David to need me." She's doing much more than that in the mainframe, but Cary can't know about any of that.

"Possibly," Cary says, thinking. "Kerry's never really had a-- Female influence in her life. Our mother was-- Kerry didn't come out when she was around. Melanie helped, but-- She was our therapist as well as our friend. That made things--"

Amy gives an agreeing hum. "David's had a lot of therapists. Some of them were better than others, but--"

"Melanie cared a great deal for Kerry," Cary assures her. "She was the first person Kerry trusted enough to come out for. Melanie changed our lives. But she wasn't Kerry's friend. Perhaps-- If you're willing--"

"I'd love to be Kerry's friend," Amy says, warmly. "If she'll have me. I'd like to get to know everyone better now that I have the chance. When I first met everyone, things were so crazy, and-- I'm afraid I wasn't ready."

Cary's expression shutters. "Because we're mutants?"

Amy hesitates. "I-- I didn't even know what a mutant was until David told me. I don't-- I suppose it wasn't what you were so much as-- What you weren't. I just wanted-- Things had been so difficult for so long. I just wanted things to be calm and normal and-- I knew I wouldn't be able to have that if I stayed." She gives a bitter laugh. "Not that I had it anyway. I just-- Fooled myself into thinking I did. And Ben--"

God, Ben. He's dead, he's really dead. She starts crying. She doesn't want to but she can't help it.

"Oh, Amy," Cary says, and opens his arms for her. Even though she just said he wasn't normal, that she didn't want to be part of his world, he opens his arms for her.

David was right. He is the best hugger. Even through the Vermillion she can feel that.

"I'm sorry," Amy says, not wanting to add to his troubles.

"No, don't apologize," Cary says. "I'm sure you don't want to talk to David about what you've been through. He probably couldn't handle it if you did. But I'd like to be your friend, too. We all would. And you can always talk to your friends."

"I'd like that," Amy says, wiping her eyes in the mainframe. "I'm sorry I said you aren't normal."

"Oh, we're nowhere near normal," Cary says, wholeheartedly. "But I think that's a very good thing. It's difficult, sometimes, but-- Being different can make us stronger, if we let it. And no one is really normal. We just happen to be a little less average than the average."

"You should tell David that," Amy says. "He-- I tried to encourage him to-- To not be afraid to want things. I think he tried, but-- He was so convinced that he didn't deserve to have anything good in his life because he was sick. That it somehow made him-- Undeserving of love or kindness or-- Anything."

"Did he always feel that way?" Cary asks.

Amy thinks back. "I don't know when it started. David was always unhappy, but-- I don't know when he started to believe that. I wish we knew what happened to David in college. We need to talk to Divad and Dvd, but-- They're very protective of him. And now they're guarding their thoughts."

"I'm sure Divad will tell us," Cary says. "From the little I've heard from him, he understands how important David's treatment is. You can talk to the alters directly from the mainframe, without David knowing, right?"

"When Oliver's awake," Amy says. "Dvd hasn't wanted to talk to us at all, but Divad has kept us updated on David's progress and given us guidance. I don't think either of them wants to talk about what Farouk actually put them through."

"That's understandable," Cary says. "But their trauma is David's trauma. They're going to have to open up eventually."

"I don't envy Ptonomy that job," Amy says. "It's hard enough helping David with all of our help. The alters are-- They really are trapped in David's head."

"Once David has access to his powers again, that could change," Cary says. "But that's not an option as long as David is still suicidal. He's better, but-- He's far too delicate."

"He is," Amy agrees. She knows exactly how easy it is for David to backslide. Without the crown, he could kill himself with one bad thought, and none of them would be able to do anything to stop him, even the alters. "Maybe--"

"Yes?" Cary prompts, when she doesn't continue.

"Oliver put a telepathic antenna in Syd's head so she could hear Divad and Dvd during her session," Amy says. "It was only meant to be temporary, but-- You and Kerry are now the only people who are physically unable to receive David's relay. If the two of you are willing to let Oliver help--"

Cary considers this. "I certainly trust Oliver, and so does Kerry, even if Oliver barely remembers us. I think the bigger problem is David. I understand that we won't be able to hear the alters without also hearing David's thoughts?"

"Oliver said that the alters' voices are David's thoughts," Amy explains. "They're thoughts he thinks his other identities are saying aloud, as well as thoughts he thinks they're thinking. So there isn't really any way to separate them."

"David's upset enough about having his thoughts relayed into the mainframe," Cary says. "And he understands that's necessary for Ptonomy to help him. I can't see him agreeing to letting me and Kerry and Syd hear his thoughts all the time, even if it means we can hear Divad and Dvd."

"Maybe Syd could help convince him?" Amy asks. "David did think about wanting her to hear his thoughts."

"Maybe," Cary says. "But that could be dangerous for both of them. Syd's-- She's afraid of what she's capable of. She's only just starting therapy."

"Let me ask Ptonomy." Amy closes the Vermillion's eyes and reaches out in the mainframe to tap Ptonomy's arm. 

"Ptonomy?" Amy calls. When he looks at her, she continues. "What do you think?"

Ptonomy pauses, reviewing her conversation with Cary. "I think having everyone able to hear Divad and Dvd would help David accept them. But he's going to resist having his privacy violated further."

"What about Syd?"

Ptonomy considers. "Let's wait until after Syd's session today. She won't let me hear her thoughts, and I need to figure out if her hearing David's thoughts would help or hurt. I could have Oliver relay her thoughts to me anyway, but-- I don't think Oliver would want to go against her wishes and it would probably backfire. Farouk could use any deception like that against us."

"Right," Amy agrees. "We did tell David he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to today."

"We did," Ptonomy agrees. "And we don't want to violate David's trust either. That's happened enough to him already. But-- It's a good idea and I think it's necessary. Look for a way to make the trade-off acceptable to David."

"I will," Amy says, and she returns her attention to the Vermillion and opens its eyes. "Ptonomy says we need to give them both time. David isn't ready yet and Syd probably isn't either."

"Of course," Cary says. "I suppose Divad and Dvd will have to wait. Ptonomy really does have his hands full. Do you think we should bring in someone else? We did have other specialized therapists in Summerland, we could reach out to them. He doesn't have to do all of this on his own."

"I don't think we can ask them to put their lives at risk," Amy says. "Ptonomy has help. He has us. He's confident that's enough, as long as we all keep helping each other."

"He is in charge of David's therapy," Cary says. "And David is getting better. It feels slow but the work he's already accomplished is enormous. It reminds me of the way Melanie and Oliver used to work together. They were a powerful team, using telepathy and psychotherapy to help people work through all kinds of trauma and mental illnesses. After he was lost to us, Melanie was always looking for someone else with Oliver's abilities. Not just to help search for Oliver, but to help her continue their work. Ptonomy worked with her the longest out of all of them. Memory walking wasn't quite the same as mind reading, but it was also incredibly effective. I'm not sure we'll ever find anyone with that mutation again. I think-- David is so powerful. Melanie wanted him to help stop Division 3 and find Oliver, but she also hoped he would be able to become part of the team at Summerland."

"Do you think he'd be able to?" Amy asks. David is so fragile. She can't imagine him being able to tolerate other people's trauma on a regular basis. He can't even tolerate his own trauma.

"There is no more Summerland," Cary says, sadly. "But-- Maybe one day. Maybe there'll be a place for us again, and maybe David will be well enough to help others."

Amy thinks of the lab and all the work being done there. "I think Summerland is wherever you are," she says, smiling for him. "You and Ptonomy and Kerry and Oliver. I didn’t know Melanie well, but-- I think she would be proud of what you're doing here."

Cary looks positively touched. "What _we're_ doing here," he corrects. "You're a part of our team now, right?"

"I guess I am," Amy says. "Maybe there'll be a place for me in that dream of yours, when this is all over."

"It's not my dream," Cary insists. "It's Oliver's."

"Oliver barely remembers who he is, much less what he wanted decades ago," Amy says. She doesn't know Oliver well but she knows that much. "Maybe it was his at the beginning, but-- You made it yours. So did Melanie, she must have."

Cary's the one with tears in his eyes now. "I hope she did. She was-- She was a lot like Syd. She took care of herself so no one else had to. Or could. That's how we-- We missed it. When he took her."

Amy holds out the Vermillion's arms and hugs Cary. She might not be able to hug the way she wants to in this body, but David didn't mind and Cary doesn't seem to either.

"See?" Amy says, in the same gentle tone she uses with David when he's upset. "We're helping each other. Just like Ptonomy said."

"So we are," Cary says. He pushes up his glasses and wipes his eyes. "Thank you. It's been-- It's been a difficult time for me as well. Kerry helps me, of course. We've always helped each other, but--"

"You're the oldest," Amy says, understanding. 

"We're the same age," Cary insists.

"You're still the oldest," Amy says. "Mom was always sick and Dad worked long hours. I had to be the one to take care of David, even when-- Even when he got taller than me. Even now. That's just how it is."

"I suppose that's how it's been for Kerry and I as well," Cary says. "Our parents were-- Unavailable. And Kerry-- She's very strong and brave, she protects me now, but--" He gives a wry smile. "I'm the oldest."

"Little brothers and sisters," Amy sighs. "They're just so much trouble all the time."

Cary chuckles. "That they are. You help me with mine and I'll help you with yours?"

"It's a deal," Amy says.


	37. Day 8: Anything that heavy makes a great weapon.

Kerry doesn't need a break. She doesn't need to go for a walk, she doesn't need to leave the lab. 

"I need to stay here with David," she insists.

"Kerry," Cary sighs. "David will be fine."

Kerry ignores him and keeps staring at David. David's not fine, she can see that, anyone could see that if they just look at him. He had to force himself to eat his breakfast, and Kerry knows when people are forcing themselves to eat. He slept all night but he looks like he didn't sleep at all. He hasn't even noticed her staring at him. He stares at Ptonomy and he stares at the Vermillion with Amy in it, and when he's not doing that he just-- Stares at nothing. Like he's not even there, like the Vermillion when no one's inside it.

They're supposed to be making him better, but he's worse. She knows he's worse. She's been watching him very carefully all week to make sure he doesn't hurt himself, and sometimes he's better but mostly he's worse. She blames the memory work and Amy's part of the memory work. Kerry doesn't like that Amy's going to be around all the time now. Even though she's David's sister and hugging her helps David feel better-- She makes David cry, too. It's been hard enough keeping David alive without someone new coming in and messing things up.

When Kerry helps David, he gets better. She understands him and he listens to her, even if he isn't very good at listening. She holds his hand and hugs him and it doesn't make him upset to do those things the way it does with Syd and Amy. He doesn't have to make himself touch her the way he has to make himself touch them, the way he forced himself to eat. Kerry is nutritious. They're-- They're _waffles_. David thinks he needs them but they're making him worse.

But they're the ones who are staying in the lab with David and everyone else is supposed to leave. 

"Kerry," Cary says, switching from pleading to firm. "We all need to take some time for ourselves. We have to take care of ourselves or we won't be able to take care of David."

Kerry finally looks at Cary. "Is this part of the body stuff?" she asks, suspicious.

"It is," Cary says. "Before, I could rest for you. Now you have to do it."

Kerry sighs. It's been weeks since they were changed and all this body stuff just keeps getting more complicated. But-- She does feel-- Tired. Like-- When she trains too much and her muscles hurt, but-- It's her whole body that's strained. Tense.

“We’ll be back soon,” Cary assures David. “We’re just going to take care of a few things. Syd and Amy will be with you, and if anything happens Ptonomy will know right away.”

Cary's right, as usual. He's always right about body stuff, no matter how much she wishes he wasn't. She stands up, but before they leave she goes to David and hugs him. He startles out of his daze and hugs her back, tentative and then accepting. It's a good, nutritious hug, and she hopes it will be enough to keep him going until she gets back. Cary gives David a hug, too. At least he understands that David needs them, even if they have to leave.

She follows Cary out of the lab and up to their room. She doesn't see what the point of coming here was. She's come back to their room plenty of times this week. She leaves the lab for stuff all the time. She should go back, but-- 

Cary finishes puttering around their room and gathers up the laundry. He hands her one of the laundry baskets and takes the other. "We'll get these started and then we'll go outside with Ptonomy. Apparently his new body is quite advanced. He says it feels just like the real thing."

"Does that mean he has to eat?" Kerry asks, as they walk into the hall, because that's the first thing she thinks of when it comes to bodies now. 

"Well, no," Cary admits. "It's still an android after all. But it's-- aesthetically accurate, in the sense of appearance as well as sense perception. He can feel touch, smell things, see and hear the way he would with his own body."

"He didn't feel anything before?" Kerry hits the button for the elevator. The laundry room is on the fourth floor.

"The Vermillion were never meant to house a human consciousness. They're an interface to gather and convey data and sensor information, to allow the Admiral to interact with the world, but-- Indirectly, autonomously, from dozens of points at once. These new bodies that Ptonomy has and that Amy and Lenny will have, they're designed to embody a single human mind, for their minds specifically. It's the best way they have to be alive in the world again. Ptonomy wants to be in the world, now that he can be. Just like you do."

The elevator arrives. She pushes the button for the fourth floor, then waits as the elevator brings them there. They walk to the laundry room and Cary gives her the detergent to put into the machines. She used to only have a few outfits but now she has more, because she has to change what she's wearing every day. Cary got her more of the ones she already had, but David always wears something different. So does Cary. So does everyone, really. She never really paid attention to that before.

Ptonomy's new body has a suit. Ptonomy's always worn a lot of fancy clothes, all of them really different. She did notice that, it was impossible not to notice that. Maybe Ptonomy can help her figure out what to wear. She hasn't really talked to Ptonomy much. It would probably be weird to ask him, and he's really busy helping David, but--

"Kerry?" Cary asks. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Kerry says. She takes the laundry basket from him and fills up the machine. "Clothes, I guess." She hesitates. "People wear a lot of them."

"We do," Cary says. He closes a machine and starts the program. Water rushes into the machine and fills it up. "Would you like to go to a clothing store when we go outside? I'm sure Ptonomy would enjoy that."

Kerry shrugs. "I guess." If she has to do all of this body stuff, at least this way she can get a lot of it done at once.

§

Ptonomy stands on the sidewalk and feels the sun on his skin. He listens to the sounds of passing cars, of people walking and talking. There are pigeons pecking at the cracks in the sidewalk, looking for crumbs of dropped food. He never really appreciated pigeons until this very moment. He thought of them as rats with wings, but they're actually beautiful, their feathers iridescent like butterflies.

And he's not even going to remember it, not the way he used to. His perfect memory died along with his body. A few weeks ago, he was trapped in a maze where he dreamed of eternal forgetfulness. He didn't actually remember it, but he looked at Cary's memory of it and remembers it through that. In Cary's memory, he looks perfectly at peace.

The reality is-- Disconcerting. He's able to use the mainframe's memory to record the memories he doesn't want to lose, but he has to make the effort. He has to remember to remember, where before it took no effort at all to remember everything.

His new memory isn't bad, it's normal. It's what everyone else has. For all his pride in his powers, for all their usefulness, there was always a part of him that wanted them gone, that sought relief. That's why the monk's virus made him forget everything but the singular moment of now. But it took dying to make Ptonomy appreciate his now, to see it as more than an illusion. Now wasn't real, it was the way his brain masked the millionths of a second it took to process what he was seeing into information his body could react to. Now was just the way he got the past into his memories with his powers, and he lived in that past.

His new brain is a lot different from his old one. He's still in the mainframe, but he's here, too, standing on the sidewalk, feeling the sun on his skin. That's an illusion, too. Life is an illusion, as far as he can tell, being neither dead nor alive but still experiencing life. If he ever does get back into an organic body, he wonders if it will even fit him anymore, all that flesh and blood and bone.

He closes his eyes. From inside the mainframe, he looks at the video feed of the lab. Syd is making tea. Amy's trying to engage David in conversation, but David can't muster much of a response. Amy was right, David's still working hard just to stay present. The mental and emotional strain that compels him to go away must be enormous, and staying means he can't hide until it passes. They might not be saving any time by keeping him with them, but more dissociation isn't what David needs. Even if he isn't up to much interaction, just being with Amy and Syd will be good for him and help him feel comfortable with them again. Their relationships with him are vital, and healing them is vital to his recovery.

"Ptonomy!"

Ptonomy opens his eyes to see Cary and Kerry approaching. He smiles, enjoying the experience of smiling, and walks forward to meet them.

"It's a lovely day," Ptonomy says.

Cary squints at the sky. "It's quite sunny. Did you have anything particular in mind for our morning?"

"Not really," Ptonomy admits. Despite what he said to David about being part of the world from anywhere, Ptonomy really needed to get out of Division 3. Now that he has a body, he needed some part of himself to be physically outside, even if his mind is still as trapped as ever. He hopes that the lunch they have planned for later will help David in the same way. An afternoon in the garden with his friends should be very beneficial. Hopefully it will be beneficial enough for David's therapy to resume tomorrow. They still have a long way to go.

"Perhaps we could go shopping," Cary suggests. "Kerry would like some new clothes."

"Is that right?" Ptonomy asks.

Kerry shrugs. "It's body stuff," she says, like that explains everything. Then she meets his eyes, uncertain yet assertive. "You're the clothes guy. Or-- Are you still the clothes guy?"

"I am," Ptonomy says, glad that he can say that. The first thing he did when he got his new body was go back to his room and try on half his wardrobe trying to find the right outfit to celebrate in. Today is definitely a day for celebration. He chose something bright and colorful, a contrast to the mourning black of the mainframe. "Do you have something in mind?"

Kerry shrugs again. "Cary always got me new clothes for my birthday. That was fine, but--" She trails off, uncomfortable.

"It's not enough anymore," Ptonomy says, understanding. "Choosing what you like, figuring out how you want to present yourself, that's a lot."

Kerry frowns. "Present myself?"

"Fashion's about a lot of things," Ptonomy explains, feeling very much in his element. "There's comfort, wearing what feels good on your body. There's your personal style and how that represents who you feel you are. There's trends, which can be good or bad."

"I just need to be able to kick ass," Kerry says. 

"Then that's part of your style," Ptonomy says. "I like my suits tight, but not so tight I can't run. We like chasing people, right?"

Kerry can't resist smiling at that. "We like catching people."

"Then how about we chase some fashion?" Ptonomy says. "Don't worry about catching anything yet. Just see what you like. See what draws your eye."

Kerry looks to Cary, then some tension in her relaxes and she looks resolved.

§

There's way too many clothes in this store.

Kerry thought there would be, like, a couple dozen outfits she could choose from. Like her closet except bigger. But this is a whole building full of clothes, and they're all awful and ugly and they don't even fit right. What if this means she'll never be able to find her style? What if she has to wear the same clothes forever? 

"I came as fast as I could." That's Amy's voice coming through the bathroom door. What's she doing here?

"You're supposed to be with David," Kerry says, angrily, even though she didn't want Amy to be with David in the first place.

"David's taking a nap," Ptonomy's voice assures her. "Syd's with him, she'll make sure he's all right."

Kerry very much doubts that. She knew she should have stayed in the lab. She knew this whole fashion thing was a bad idea. Everything is a bad idea.

Her life used to be so simple. She stayed inside of Cary except when she didn't. She went outside of him for training and fighting so she could save mutants who needed help, so she could protect them like she protected Cary, but otherwise she stayed inside. If she was tired, if she got hurt, if anything else was wrong at all, she went inside of Cary and he took care of everything. He's the one who ate and slept and went on errands and picked out clothes and taught her things and took her wounds away and healed them. And now it's like-- It's like he's already dead, even though he's standing on the other side of the locked bathroom door worrying about her. It's like Farouk killed him when he changed them because he was so much of her and now she has to be herself without him.

She doesn't know who she is without him. She's been trying so hard to figure it all out, to be brave and independent and eat things and choose things and understand things, but the world is too much for her. It's too confusing and there's too many choices and it's like the cafeteria except a billion times worse and even the guides are confusing.

She just wants to go back inside him. It's not fair that she can't go back inside him. She thought she could be more than just a passenger, but she can't. It's too much.

She hears them talking on the other side of the door, and then someone puts a key into the lock. Kerry grabs the handle and holds the door firmly shut.

"Kerry," Cary sighs. "Please open the door."

"Go away!" Kerry shouts. She doesn't want Cary to go away, she wants to be inside him, but she can't be inside him ever again and seeing him just reminds her of that. So she doesn't want to see him, she doesn't want to see Ptonomy, she doesn't want to see the Vermillion and she certainly doesn't want to talk to Amy.

"She won't listen to me," Cary says to someone. "We picked out some clothes, she tried them on, and-- She got very upset. She wouldn't say why. I think she's just-- Overwhelmed, by all of this."

"I'll see what I can do," Amy says. "I think you and Ptonomy should go. Let me talk to her alone."

"I don't know," Cary says, sounding unconvinced.

"If she's overwhelmed, she needs some space," Amy says. "That's how it was for David. Just give her some space, okay?"

Cary sighs. "We'll be-- There's some chairs by the changing room."

Kerry listens. She hears the sound of Cary and Ptonomy walking away. Then she hears the key being pulled out of the lock. She tenses but the handle doesn't turn.

"You can lock it now," Amy says.

Kerry locks it. She sits back against the door, determined to keep everyone out. She hears movement through the door, and it sounds like Amy is sitting down on the other side.

"Hey," Amy says, her voice at Kerry's level. "No one's going to come in, okay? I won't let them. I've got the key so no one will try to come in."

Kerry doesn't respond to that. It's stupid. It's not like Amy is strong enough to stop anyone from getting in, even in a Vermillion. She's not a mutant, she's not even alive. She can barely move around. And so what if she has the key? Not having a key never stopped anyone. Kerry saw an axe in the wall with the fire extinguisher outside the bathroom. Someone could grab the axe and break the door down. She should have grabbed the axe before she locked herself into the bathroom. And the fire extinguisher. Anything that heavy makes a great weapon.

"Cary said you were trying to find something new to wear," Amy says. "Did you see anything you liked?"

"No," Kerry insists. "It's all ugly and stupid."

Amy chuckles. "Clothes shopping can feel that way sometimes. It's hard to find what we like. It's even harder to find something we like that fits us."

Kerry's clothes always fit perfectly. The ones Cary gets her does, anyway. They fit perfectly and she can run and fight in them and she looks badass in them. But none of these clothes are like that. They're not meant for her and that makes her feel-- 

It makes her feel like running away and locking herself in a bathroom.

"David didn't like clothes shopping either," Amy says.

"David has lots of clothes," Kerry insists. He wears different things all the time and he enjoys it. Of course he likes buying clothes.

"He does now, but not when he was young," Amy says. "He had a lot of trouble going anywhere when he was young. Places like this, with a lot of people and-- They were very hard for him. He locked himself in bathrooms, too."

"No he didn't," Kerry insists. There's no way David ever locked himself in a bathroom over clothes. He wants to kill himself all the time but not because he's scared of clothes. He loves those fashion magazines. He likes all that stuff, just like Ptonomy does, even if David's clothes aren't nearly as nice as Ptonomy's. 

"He really did," Amy says. "David was-- He was so scared all the time. And I didn't know why. I didn't--" She stops talking, and then it sounds like she's crying. "I'm sorry," she says, but she keeps crying, soft and tight sobs that remind Kerry of how Cary would cry when he was young and afraid but didn't want anyone to hear him. When he was the physical age that Kerry is now, when they were forced to stay in the hospital and take all those drugs. Kerry hid for a lot of those years, and here she is, hiding again.

She's hiding again. Cary's probably sad, too, even though he doesn't cry much anymore. 

If David was scared when he was young-- They know why David was scared and it wasn't clothes. Amy didn't know then. She should have known, she was his sister. She should have known what was wrong with him.

But even though they were brother and sister-- They didn't share a body. David couldn't hide inside of Amy, he was the one with other people hiding inside of him. So he had to be strong for them the way Cary had to be strong for her, even when he was afraid. And now Kerry's the outside one and she has to be strong for Cary. But instead she's the one who's upsetting him, like David upset Amy.

It's very-- Complicated. All this hiding and helping and who's supposed to help who. It's not simple the way it used to be. For a long time, she didn't even protect Cary. She just hid and let him do everything for her. That was just how they worked. But they don't work that way anymore and-- Now she has to do all these things for herself and go places and talk to other people. She has to help David and let other people help him. And now Amy is trying to help her but instead she's crying on the other side of the door. Amy's not even somewhere safe. It's bad enough crying, it's worse to cry where other people can see you.

"Amy," Kerry says, uncertain. "Do you-- Want to come in? You can cry in here if you want."

Amy cries a bit more. "Okay," she says.

Kerry stands up and opens the door. The Vermillion isn't crying, it doesn't make tears, but Amy sounds like she's crying. The Vermillion gets up from the floor and comes inside. Kerry closes the door and locks it. She watches the Vermillion not crying. It's almost like-- The Vermillion is like Cary, and Amy is like Kerry. The way they were. One person inside of another, even if the Vermillion isn't actually a person. 

"It wasn't your fault," Kerry decides. "Not knowing about David. I didn't tell Cary a lot of things, but-- I knew he wanted to protect me. I knew he loved me."

"Of course you did," Amy says, tearfully.

"But Cary was already--" Kerry feels upset again and she doesn't want to cry anymore. But she has all these feelings that need to come out of her. Like she needed to come out of Cary. Like Divad and Dvd need to come out of David. None of them can hide anymore. "He says-- I was always there for him. But that's a lie. I let him-- I hid and-- Bad things happened to him because I didn't want them to happen to me."

"Oh Kerry," Amy says, kindly. "You were afraid. You must have been so young."

"I would have been older," Kerry admits. "If I'd come out with him from the start, we'd be the same age. We are, but-- We're not. Because I hid. So it's not-- It's not your fault, about David. It's not Cary's fault about me. So neither of you should cry."

The Vermillion awkwardly smiles. "It's okay for all of us to cry," Amy says. "When things are scary and sad, even when we're supposed to protect someone we care about. It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be-- Good, to cry together. If you don't want Cary to feel alone."

"Cary doesn't cry much anymore," Kerry says, but-- Amy cries a lot. And Amy's like Cary. She-- Kerry's been watching Amy closely and Amy tried not to cry in front of David over breakfast. But she's crying now, in front of Kerry.

"You can cry with me, I guess," Kerry decides. "You can-- You can hug me, if that helps. Hugs always help--"

Kerry doesn't even get to finish the sentence before the Vermillion pulls her into a hug. The android isn't soft, it's hard and kinda awkward, but-- Kerry can tell how much Amy means the hug. She can feel the hug that Amy's trying to give from inside the Vermillion.

Amy can't be all bad if she gives hugs the way Cary gives hugs. Maybe she's not so waffley after all. Maybe she'll be nutritious once they get the syrup off of her.

The Vermillion lets her go. "Thank you," Amy says, sounding better. She's stopped crying, and Kerry doesn't want to cry anymore either. "I'm so glad you're David's friend. And I'd like to be your friend, too, if that's okay."

Kerry shrugs. "Yeah, I guess so." She still doesn't like the Vermillion, but soon Amy will be out of the Vermillion and in a body that actually looks like her. It'll probably be easier to like Amy then. It's a lot easier to have Ptonomy back, even though he's still dead, too.

"I could help you look for some nice clothes," Amy offers.

"I'm kinda done with clothes," Kerry says. "I just-- Wanna go back. We shouldn't leave David alone with Syd. She's waffles."

The Vermillion gives a confused blink. "She's waffles?"

Kerry nods. "David thinks he needs her, but she's bad for him."

"That's--" Amy says, but she stops. "Okay. Ptonomy and Cary are coming now. We'll go back. I'm sure everything will be fine."

§

"Everything's fine," Ptonomy assures Kerry, as they walk out onto the street. "I'm watching them now. David's still asleep. Syd's sitting with him. Everything's just fine."

Kerry continues to be unconvinced. Ptonomy continues to be impressed by her intuition. For someone who spent her whole life hiding, she has a sharp eye for behavior when she actually lets herself engage with her environment.

The truth is, Syd is a problem. That's why Ptonomy left her and Amy there together. Either one alone would be stressful for David, but put them together and they balance out. But they needed to pull Amy away to help Kerry, so now Syd is alone with David. Thankfully David's still asleep. Syd can't do any more damage while David's asleep. Unless she decides to practice touching him again. For someone who prides herself so much on her personal space, Syd has no respect for David's. But Syd's treatment of David is something he's been planning to talk to her about today anyway. He just needs the right opportunity to pull her away so they can have her session without David overhearing.

They all need to be open and truthful with each other to protect themselves against Farouk's inevitable mind games. But the truth can be as destructive as lies, if it's not handled right. David is in no way ready to face the truth about his relationship with Syd, not when he has so many other things that take priority for his recovery. Syd's barely ready to face the truth herself, but her denial has to end if she doesn't want to keep making the same mistakes. If she doesn't want to help end the world.

When they reach the compound, David is still asleep. Syd is sketching in David's notebook. She didn't ask permission before she did that, either. That notebook is essential to David's recovery and the rebuilding of his identity, but she thinks she can just write all over it. She thinks she has the right to do a lot of things.

Ptonomy has been very tempted to make her leave. But David loves and needs her, and she loves and needs him. Forcing her to leave would make David worse and it would make Syd even more vulnerable to Farouk. Better to have her inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in, as his dad used to say.

They all head to the laundry room so Kerry and Cary can move their laundry to the dryers. Amy helps, continuing to bond with Kerry. He's glad. Amy and David, Kerry and Cary-- They have strong sibling bonds, but they've each been isolated despite that. Now all four of them are connecting with each other. They're all very compatible people, compassionate protectors at heart. They'll be good for each other and good for David, especially together.

Ptonomy watches from inside the mainframe as David wakes up from his nap. He stills again as Syd finishes drawing him. David asks about Amy and Syd's first therapy session and mentions the alters are asleep nearby. Ptonomy tenses as Syd starts talking about the session, and David tries to get her to stop, but-- 

"We'd better get back," Ptonomy says. But as he walks out of the laundry room, he knows it's already too late. He sighs in frustration. _Syd, all you had to do was let him rest,_ he thinks, angrily, as he watches the disaster unfold. He wonders if there's a version of his dad's military aphorism about people being inside the tent and pissing in it anyway. If not, Syd is inventing it right before Ptonomy's digital eyes.


	38. Day 8: I’m drawing you. I'm almost done.

The past week has been the most intense therapy of David’s life. It’s only now that everything has stopped that he can see it, that he can see how hard they’ve been driving him at every turn. Not just the sessions and the memory work, but every moment of his time that wasn’t spent sleeping or catching his breath, someone has come at him with something to push him forward. It’s been everything at once for days: the things he’s done and the things done to him, his diseases and his alters, his memories of the past and the people with him now, all to prevent a future he doesn't know how to avoid.

He can’t think about any of it anymore. There’s nothing left in him to do any work, to talk about anything. He barely had enough energy to get through breakfast. 

Everyone else has to catch their breath, too. Helping him, worrying over him, it’s all taken a toll on them, he can see that despite his exhaustion. He still feels like they’re hurting themselves for nothing, but— It’s what they want to do. They believe he can be saved, that he’s worth saving, that he’s somehow worth all of this. He can’t, but— He can let them believe for him.

He’s the only one who can’t leave, but they’ve all been keeping close, cooped up in the lab with him. So of course now that they don’t need to stay to help him, they all want to leave.

"We’ll be back soon," Cary assures David, and assures Kerry, who refused to leave until Cary talked her into it. "We’re just going to take care of a few things. Syd and Amy will be with you, and if anything happens Ptonomy will know right away."

Kerry and Cary hug him, and then they're gone. He can feel the memory of their embraces even after they're gone.

Ptonomy‘s not the only one who will know if anything happens. Division 3 is always watching. But these days that’s equal parts reassuring and disturbing. Clark might not be David’s favorite person, but— He didn’t have to say what he did about David’s birth parents. He didn’t have to bring the lamp himself. Kerry’s right, Clark is a jerk, but— He’s a jerk with a heart.

David tries not to care about Clark too much. He doesn’t want him to be tortured for the rest of his life. He doesn’t want Clark and his family to suffer because of him. That probably means they will. Farouk is always watching, too, always listening so he can savor David’s pain and figure out the best way to make more of it. That voracious appetite has to be fed.

David’s too tired to care about the monster or even to be scared. There’s barely anything left of him anyway. If Farouk tried anything now, the last wisps of air from that popped balloon would just vanish, dissipating into nothing. And what would be the fun in that? If Farouk wanted that, he could have just let David kill himself to begin with.

Farouk doesn't want him to die. David thought he did, he went to the desert thinking that, but— Farouk has never wanted him to die.

David doesn't want to think about the monster. He thinks about Oliver. Oliver is still asleep, astral projecting to search for Melanie. That's how he's spending his day off from David's therapy. David's tempted to do the same himself. Not to search for Melanie, though he'd help if he could. But just to be outside of his body, to get relief from living. It wouldn't be like before, the last thing he wants is to go away again. He could— He could spend time with his alters. They're playing cards again, he could play cards with them.

But—

Amy and Syd are sitting on the sofa, talking to each other while Syd drinks tea. They stayed to keep him company and he doesn’t want to leave them. He spent so much time running away from them, from everything, from himself. Dissociating. He needs to be present. He needs to stay.

But staying is about all he can do. He doesn’t have it in him to talk, after spending days talking about everything. He’s too well-rested to nap but too mentally fried to concentrate. He’s bored but doesn’t have the energy to attempt anything interesting. 

He wanders around the lab, aimless, and spots Kerry’s magazines. He feels a pathetic thrill as he flips through the stack. It was always a Clockworks highlight when new issues arrived. He takes the ones about fashion and beauty, including the one he did the crossword for. He doesn’t have the brain power for puzzles. He sinks into one of the beanbag chairs, feeling pleasantly unable to escape the chair’s deep embrace, and opens the first magazine. The pages are fragrant from the perfume samples. The bright colors and stylish photos are the perfect combination of stimulating and soothing. He reads contentedly, his mind soaking in a warm bath of frivolity. 

He missed this, he truly missed it. It’s one of the purest, simplest joys of his entire life. He could do this forever. 

He zones out and wakes up sometime later, one magazine spread across his chest and the others fallen to the floor. The sun has moved higher and Amy isn’t on the sofa anymore. Syd is still there, and she’s writing in his notebook. 

He feels slightly less mentally fried. Maybe he did need a nap after all. Or maybe it was the magazine. 

He rubs his face, bleary, and Syd looks at him. 

"Hey," she says, and stops writing. "You moved."

"I moved?" David echoes. 

"You’re not supposed to move. Close your eyes."

David musters a curious look, but closes his eyes. He lies still for a while, his head cradled by the beanbag. Then he opens one eye. "Why am I not supposed to move?"

Syd is focused on the notebook. "I’m drawing you. I'm almost done."

Syd used to draw him in Clockworks. He would sit and she would sketch. He would let his mind drift to the sound of her pencil scratching against the page. 

He closes his eye. 

The lab is quiet and his mind is quieter. His mind is so quiet: no powers, no voices, he doesn’t even hear his alters. It’s awe-inspiringly quiet. He tries not to think about anything so he doesn’t disturb it. He listens to the sound of Syd’s pencil and it’s just as soothing as it always was. 

He’s almost drifted off again when the scratching stops. 

"Done," Syd declares. "Wanna see?"

David opens his eyes. Syd leans forward and put the notebook down on the the coffee table. David picks the magazine from his chest, stretches, then swaps the magazine for the notebook. 

Syd’s very good, as always. She’s captured him in detail: He’s slumped in the beanbag, dozing, the crown on his head and the magazine across his front. His face is— tired, vulnerable. He looks like he needs a dozen more naps. Is that what he looks like? It must be. Syd always saw him clearer than he saw himself. 

"It’s very good," David compliments. "Where’s Amy?"

"With the others. They’ll be back soon. We’re having lunch in the garden."

A picnic. That sounds— Really nice. 

He looks around and is surprised to see his alters asleep, each curled up on a loveseat. It's— Strange, seeing them sleep. Seeing himself sleep. They look— tired, vulnerable. Like they need a dozen more naps. 

He doesn't want to wake them. He needs to keep his thoughts quiet, calm. They've— They've been working hard to help him, too. To protect him when he couldn't protect himself. To remember the things he can't and shouldn't ever remember. They were right about that. They do know what's best for him after all. At least he's finally realized that.

He can't think about himself. He should talk to Syd. What should he talk about? She had therapy yesterday, or she was supposed to.

"Did you ever have your therapy session?" David asks her, keeping his voice quiet so he doesn't disturb Divad or Dvd.

"Why are you whispering?" Syd asks, matching his level.

David points to the loveseats. "They're asleep. My, uh, my alters."

Syd looks, but she can't see anything but empty furniture. "Should we move?"

David considers this. They're his hallucinations, so— "Probably not?" he whispers. Whatever he can hear, they can hear. He still doesn't understand how his brain can be three separate people at once, but also all himself. But that's too confusing for him to figure out even when his brain is working, which it's currently not. Or at least his part of his brain isn't working.

It's really confusing.

David must be thinking too hard, because Divad stirs. David stops thinking and Divad settles again.

"Um, it went well," Syd says, when David is quiet for too long. "My session. We figured out a lot about— About Future Syd. Why she did what she did to you."

"You did?" David asks. He couldn't figure it out, but— If anyone could do it, it would be Syd. "So why did she—"

Syd grimaces. "You don't want to know. And you shouldn't think about that. Not today. But— Your alters helped me, so you wouldn't have to."

"Helped you?"

Syd taps her forehead. "Oliver put in a— A telepathic antenna. So he could send your relay to me. Only for the session, don't worry. I can't hear anything now. Well, even if Oliver was awake, I still wouldn't hear anything."

David doesn't know how he feels about any of that. If he thinks about it he'll wake up his alters, so he can't think about it. They need to rest, like he needs to rest. They all need a dozen more naps and no shocks.

David looks down at the sketch of himself. Of course his alters look just like him, but— It's like Syd drew them, too, apart from the crown and the magazine. It's like she drew all of them at once.

"David?" Syd prompts, concerned.

"It's—" David stops, tries again. "Can we— Not talk about this right now?" They have to, of course they have to, but he can't talk about this right now.

"Okay," Syd soothes. "Do you want to talk about something else?"

He shakes his head. He needs Amy. He needs Kerry. He needs Syd, but— He can't think about Syd, not without thinking about what she just told him. "When is everyone coming back?" he asks.

Divad and Dvd both wake up. Damn it.

"David?" Divad asks, concerned. 

"It's under control," David says, and it is. He's calm. He's not thinking about upsetting things. He just— Wishes the others were back. 

"I'm sorry," Syd says. "We didn't want to put you through that. It's my therapy, not yours."

"But they are me," David insists. He was asleep and they did things to him, again. 

"All we did was talk to Syd," Divad says, reasonably. "She's the one who let her head be changed by Oliver. All we did was let you rest. You needed to rest, like you need to rest now. Stop stressing yourself out."

"Stop telling him not to feel things," Dvd defends. "You're supposed to help him stay calm, not erase him."

"Oh, don't you start with that, too," Divad says, annoyed. Then he calms himself. "We're not arguing about this. Not today."

Dvd slumps back in his loveseat, displeased.

"I guess they're awake?" Syd asks.

"Yeah," David says, pressing his fingers to his face. "Syd?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think one day off is gonna be enough."

Syd tilts her head sympathetically. "We'll get you through this, okay? We're all gonna get through this together."

When he doesn't respond, she looks thoughtfully at him, then comes over and sits down in the other beanbag chair. She sinks down into it, mirroring him. And then she holds out her hand.

David looks at it, uncertain.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," Syd says, genuinely. "I'm sorry I— I didn't ask you. We should have asked you."

He shouldn't take her hand. He shouldn't hold it. He's the one who hurt her, who did things to her, unforgivable things. But— Yesterday, she held his hand. She looked at him and took his hand and didn't let go. He doesn't even remember letting go. His hand still aches from holding on to her, to Amy, to all of them.

He doesn't deserve her forgiveness. She shouldn't be kind to him. She should hate him so much.

"Please?" Syd asks, reaching out. "For me?"

She wants him to take her hand. He can't refuse her, he never could. But he doesn't deserve to hold her hand. But she wants him to. But he shouldn't.

But he— But he needs her. He needs her like he needs Amy and Kerry and— He needs her.

He shouldn't. He doesn't deserve her. But— She already held his hand. She already touched him, she— She's touched him a lot. But she did it for him, so he could have— So he wouldn't be— Touch starved. So he could feel— Safe. Nurtured.

She just wants— She just wants to keep him safe. She just wants him to get better. It's— It's part of his treatment. So he'll get better. If he refuses his treatment, he's just— Punishing himself. Hurting himself. And if he hurts himself, he'll never get better.

She wants him to get better. He wants that, too. So he just has to— He just has to reach out and—

He takes her hand. He takes it and she holds him and— It's okay. He's okay. Nothing terrible happens. He's just— holding her hand, like he held Amy's and Kerry's and— Like he held Syd's hand before. 

It’s what he always wanted for them: to sit together and hold hands. There’s no ‘them’ anymore, they’re just— Two separate people. Patients in therapy. "It's like we're therapy buddies," he says, because she can’t read his mind. Because Oliver's asleep. Because he doesn't want her to. So many people are listening to his thoughts all the time and he just needs something for himself, some tiny corner of his mind for himself. Even if that corner is in someone else's mind.

Syd smiles. She keeps holding his hand. "What's a therapy buddy?"

David tightens his hold on her hand. "It was— I don't know if it was real, but— When I started therapy, when I was diagnosed as— I was pretty young. So they matched me up with another kid with schizophrenia, seeing the same therapist. To help me— Open up. Feel— Less alone. Like group therapy, but— A very small group."

"Did it help?" Syd asks.

"Obviously not," David says. "But that wasn't his fault. Nothing helped. I had a monster in my head making sure nothing would ever help."

"You did," Syd says, calmly. "But now the monster isn't in your head. So the things that could've helped, they can help now. Like having a therapy buddy."

He loosens his hold, but she doesn't. She holds on to him.

"So what did you do with your therapy buddy?" she asks. "How does it work?"

"Um. We were supposed to talk to each other. Share our problems. Find, uh— The things that matched. I wasn't very— Talkative. I remember being so— Angry, all the time. I don't even know why." He doesn't know if any of that was real, but he felt angry all the time for years. Even after college, he just felt so angry, no matter what he took, no matter how hard he tried to be calm. It only stopped when he tried to kill himself. It was like— He killed the anger instead of himself. Or maybe it was just the numbness of the aftermath, and then he spent six years so drugged he could barely feel anything at all. But the anger didn't come back when he got off the meds. Maybe by then the drugs had killed that part of him for good.

He tries not to think that they should have doubled his dose, tripled it. They should have—

"I'd like that," Syd says, smiling for him, oblivious to the awfulness in his head, the way she should be. "We can help each other. Talk to each other. Hold hands."

She shouldn't hold his hand. God, she shouldn't. But she is and— He doesn't want to let go. He doesn't want her to let go.

"Okay," David says, holding tight again.

He doesn't say anything else. He can't, and she— She just stays with him, quiet and calm. He always liked that about her, her calm, her solid steadiness. After Clockworks, when everything was chaos and madness, she was the one thing he could rely on, the one person he could turn to. Until she was two people and both of them—

"I'm sorry," Syd says, out of nowhere. "I know you're not ready to talk about Future Syd, but— I'm sorry for what she did to you. What I did to you."

David glances over at Oliver, but Oliver is still asleep. But then Syd never had much trouble figuring him out even without telepathy.

"You didn't—" David starts, but she did. He can't— He can't deny that she did. 

"She was me," Syd insists. "She had her reasons, but— She was still wrong, to do all of that to you. I was wrong. I want to apologize to you for what she did. What I did. And— I'm sorry for what I did when you came back."

"You don't have to—"

"I do," Syd insists. "You were taken against your will, again. And I— I blamed you. I put that on you when you were scared and that made you feel like— Like if it happened again, if you were taken again, I wouldn't find you. That's why— That's why you made this for me." She grips the locket she's still wearing, despite everything.

It takes a moment for David to register all of that. "I didn't—" he lies, automatic, defensive. He'd told her Cary made the compass. "How did you know I—"

Divad and Dvd suddenly look away.

"They told you," David realizes. This is why he would never have agreed to let them talk to Syd. He can't— They're him but they're not him and he can't control them, he can't stop himself from saying things he shouldn't say. They know everything about him, even things he doesn't know, and he can't stop them from telling everyone everything.

He can't stop them anyway, not from talking to the mainframe. But he doesn't want them to talk to anyone else. He doesn't want that.

"That's not fair," Dvd says, angrily. "We've always shared everything, that's how we work."

"Don't," Divad warns.

"No, he needs to hear this," Dvd says. "David, do you think we're happy, trapped like this? We spent years trapped because Farouk wouldn't let us reach you. And now you can hear us, but you're doing just what he did. You won't let us share our body, and fine, I get that. He fucked you over and he _knew_ , that shit beetle knew that if we ever got you back, you'd never let us be together, not like we were. All he ever did was try to tear us apart and he couldn't, but— But you are!"

"Dvd, stop," Divad warns again.

"Shut up," Dvd says, showing his teeth. "I've been there for you every single moment since you made us. No matter what. That's what I'm for. That used to mean something to you. But he took that away and now you don't even want to remember what we had. You don't want to be our David again. You don't want to be anything. Do you have any idea what it does to us every time you think about killing yourself? Do you even care that you'd be killing us, too? No, you don't, because you still won't accept that we're as real as you, that we're all real." He stands up, distraught and furious. "Amy called us brothers. I want that. But you know what? I can't do this anymore. You don't need me and I can't do this. I'm out."

And then he's gone. 

"Dvd!" Divad shouts. "Dvd!" He groans in frustration. "I'll talk to him." And then he's gone, too.

"David?" Syd asks, cautious. "What just happened?"

David stares at the empty loveseats. "They're gone."

"What do you mean? They're invisible?"

"No, they're— They're gone." David can't feel them anymore. They're just— Not there. He's alone.

That's what he wanted, wasn't it? To be alone in his own head? He should be happy, but happy is the last thing he feels. 

"They can't be gone, they're permanent," Syd says. 

David shakes his head. "Dvd said— He said I didn't need him so— He left. And Divad went after him, but—"

This is his fault. Dvd's right, of course he's right. David's so fucking selfish he didn't even think about the fact that killing himself would mean killing the two other people in his head. The people who protected him since he was a child. The people who— Who he created to save himself, and in doing so trapped them with the monster, trapped them with the monster he is now.

They shouldn't come back. Wherever they went, they shouldn't come back. They can't save him and it's only hurting them to try.

"David," Syd says, and she's in front of him now, worried. She's holding his hand in both of hers, but he's not holding her back. "Stay with me, okay?"

David shakes his head. He's not going away. He deserves to feel this. It's his fault. He's crying, but he shouldn't cry, not when it's his fault.


	39. Day 8: It's all completely fucked and nothing's ever gonna un-fuck it.

Some therapy buddy she makes.

Syd watches David sit slumped over the picnic table and tries not to blame herself. Kerry and Amy are sitting with him, keeping him company and trying to cheer him up and encouraging him to eat. But this is bad.

"You can't blame yourself because they left," Ptonomy says, even though he can't read her mind. "David's whole situation is precarious. Even an apology has the potential to wreak havoc, but that doesn't mean the apology shouldn't have been given. It's my fault. I started the group therapy for them to avoid this, but we got distracted by the memory work."

"This would be a lot easier to fix if we had Oliver back," Cary says, regretful. "We shouldn't have given him the day off."

"He'll come back," Ptonomy says, confident. "He wants to be here to help David because of Melanie. When he can't find her, he'll come back."

"What if he gets lost again?" Cary asks. "We've just lost both our methods of knowing David's thoughts. This won't work without telepathy, not at the speed we need to go."

"I keep telling you, this isn't a race," Ptonomy says. "It's therapy. It goes however fast it goes. David has thirty years of intense trauma and broken relationships, not to mention the extensive amnesia and false memories. None of that is going to heal overnight. We're making good progress but it hasn't been easy and it's not going to be easy with or without telepathy."

"It's going to be even worse if Divad doesn't come back," Syd says. "He's David's emotional regulation."

"Dvd's the one we need to worry about," Ptonomy says. "Oliver and Divad will both come back on their own. Dvd— I wish we knew what he said, but— I think we've heard enough hints. He has good reasons to be angry and upset. I'd talk to him, but we won't have any way to reach him until tomorrow morning."

"Where did they go, anyway?" Syd asks. "How can they be gone?"

"It's quite normal for alters to vanish," Cary says. "It's similar to how Kerry and I can disappear inside each other, but— More like a deep form of dissociation. When I went inside of Kerry for the first time, I was— I saw myself back in our childhood home. David must have something similar. It's typically known as an inner world or a headspace."

"Maybe you really do have DID," Syd says, wondering. Kerry's hiding, Cary's distraction and his strong focus on his work to the exclusion of other parts of his life— Syd's learned enough about dissociation to recognize those as dissociative behaviors. And their childhood was traumatic, even if the apparent reason for the trauma was a result of their powers. Maybe their dissociative split was in the womb.

"It's quite possible," Cary admits. "I meant what I said to David. Our situations are very much the same, even if the details are different. Kerry manifested externally, or perhaps I did. David's alters are only internal, at least at this point."

"All of which is interesting, but how does it help us resolve this?" Ptonomy asks.

"I don't think we can," Syd says. "We just have to hope Divad can convince Dvd to come back."

"And we need to make sure David doesn't get any more upset until Divad comes back," Cary adds.

"Nobody make any sudden apologies," Syd mutters.

"I think—" Ptonomy starts. "I need to do some more research."

"On what?" Syd asks.

"On David and what’s wrong with him."

"There’s something else?" Syd asks, horrified. 

"Not something new, exactly," Ptonomy says. "I have access to a lot of current psychological information through the mainframe. I’ve been focused on David and his history, but— I need to look around, see what’s helped others with his symptoms. The truth is, when this started we had an incomplete picture of David’s trauma. We still do. But David’s hitting a lot of roadblocks, more than I hoped he would. There’s something deeper here, even deeper than his dissociation. I’ll be busy for a while figuring that out. I’ll leave my body sleeping in the lab, if that’s all right."

"Of course," Cary says. 

Syd watches Ptonomy go. That’s four of David’s helpers gone and four remaining. "So much for a day off," she sighs. 

"David’s had setbacks before," Cary assures her. "He’ll be okay."

"It just feels like he’s getting worse, not better. And he was already—"

"Sometimes that’s how it goes," Cary says. "Sometimes getting better means getting worse, at least for a while. If healing was easy, there wouldn’t be so many people in pain."

Syd knows that, she does. But she can’t help but be afraid. She just wants her David back, but every time she thinks he’s close, he slips further away. She wants to save him from his pain, but everything they do seems to push him deeper into it. David is so fractured and now his identities are tearing apart. Can he even survive that? What would happen to all his dissociated feelings if Dvd never comes back? 

"Cary, can you— Is there a way for me to look at those mainframe resources?"

"I don’t have access to that, but you could ask Clark," Cary suggests. "The mainframe is a sensitive resource, but maybe the Admiral can set you up with the psychology databases Ptonomy is using."

"I think I need them," Syd admits. Her book was a start, but the truth is that she doesn’t know anywhere near enough to help the way she wants to. She didn’t even finish college. She’s always been a fast learner and her mother taught her a lot, but— The truth is that she was a mental patient, not a therapist. She worked with Melanie in a political position, not a therapeutic one. This isn’t a situation she can feel her way through. David’s life is at stake, and so is her’s, and so is everyone’s. She has to stop making mistakes with him, making him worse. Otherwise she really is getting in the way of David’s recovery.

"Will the three of you be all right?" Syd asks.

"We’ll be fine," Carry assures her. "Go help David. We’ll keep him safe."

§

Divad walks in through their bedroom door. "You have to—"

"Save your breath," Dvd says. He’s sitting in their rocking chair, _his_ rocking chair. If David's going to keep claiming their things for himself, so is Dvd. "I'm not coming back. And don't even think about trying to emotionally regulate me."

"If I could, I’d have done it decades ago," Divad says. He closes the door and sits down on their bed. "You do know you just did to him what you're always telling me off for doing."

"Everything makes David suicidal," Dvd grumbles. "He's got loads of people keeping him alive. He'll be fine."

"He won't be," Divad says, like he knows it for a fact. Divad doesn't know anything, he just acts like he does.

"He doesn't care about us," Dvd says, in no mood for Divad's manipulative crap. "He cares about Syd and Amy more than us. They're the ones who hurt him and he took them back before us! Well they can have him."

"He doesn't remember us," Divad says. "He remembers them. Of course he took them back first. If we'd been able to find a good memory—"

"That's bullshit," Dvd says, because it is. "He remembers the lamp. We have the lamp, but is that enough for him? No, it's not."

"It will be," Divad insists. "Look what happened with Syd's book. That almost got him to accept that he's still himself."

"Close is for hand grenades," Dvd says, waving his hand in dismissal. "He doesn't want to accept himself. He doesn't even want to remember the things he can remember. We're never going to get him back and I'm sick of trying."

Divad shifts back against the pillows, leans against the headboard. He looks at the stars turning across the walls. 

Dvd picks up the lamp. Their lamp is still intact, unlike that other lamp. If David remembered them, they could share their lamp again. They brought David here after Syd tried to kill him, but David still thought they were hallucinations. He still thinks they're hallucinations. Fuck hallucinations.

Dvd throws the lamp against the wall and it shatters.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Divad says, actually upset for once.

"It felt good," Dvd says. "What do you care? It's not real, right? We're not real, this bedroom isn't real, David isn't real, so what does it matter if it all breaks?"

"It will matter to David," Divad insists.

"Bullshit," Dvd sneers. "You know what I think? I think it matters to you, but you won't admit it, because you never admit anything. You always know what's right for everyone, and that means you're never wrong."

"Oh, and you're right?"

"I'm always right," Dvd insists. "It's the world that's fucked-up. It's the world that's fucked up David and fucked up us. It's all completely fucked and nothing's ever gonna un-fuck it."

"Eloquent as always," Divad mutters. 

"We should have told David to run right after Syd shot him," Dvd insists. "That was our one chance to get him back and we fucked it up."

"Oh, so now it’s not the world’s fault? It was your plan. You’re the one who told him to make Syd forget, you’re the one who insisted we make sure the monster died."

"You went along with it!"

"David wasn’t listening to me," Divad defends. "I thought he’d calm down once he got Syd back. Syd always calms him down."

"She used to," Dvd says. "And then she turned on us and made us do things. She’s the last thing we need. And Amy, too. Fuck that bitch. She makes a sad little smile with a robot face and David just rolls right over. I bet she can’t wait to lock us up again."

"We don’t know that, not without our powers. We can’t read them, any of them."

"That’s why we can’t trust them," Dvd says. "I tried. I tried to play along and make nice for David. But David’s not coming back. He’s never coming back and— Whoever this Fake David is, I wasn’t made for him. He’s on his own."

"So what?" Divad challenges. "You’re just gonna hide in here forever? With our broken lamp?"

"Fake David has his broken lamp, now I have mine. Get your own."

"You are such a child."

"Bite me."

Divad gets off the bed and heads for the door, but stops and turns around. "No. I’m not letting you tear us apart, too. You wanna be mad at David? Be mad at him! But be mad at him to his face. Don’t run away and pull this— Second-grade bullshit."

"So eloquent," Dvd sneers.

"I mean it. Either we go back together or we don’t go back at all."

"Better get comfortable," Dvd tells him. 

Divad sits back down on the bed. "I’m very comfortable," he warns, and crosses his arms. 

"Aren’t you worried about Fake David?" Dvd sneers. 

"He’s not a different person," Divad insists. "Don’t buy into his delusion."

"Whatever."

"You’re supposed to be the one who never gives up."

"I never gave up on David. Fake David doesn’t deserve me. Only David deserves me and he’s gone." Damn it. Dvd isn’t in their body, but his throat is getting tight. Fuck the shit beetle for doing this to him, to all of them. Fuck the shit beetle for killing David. And fuck himself for thinking there was any hope of getting him back. 

Dvd’s been doing exactly what the monster wants him to do. He’s been torturing himself with hope, with memories. That’s what’s happening to Fake David, too. Maybe Fake David has the right idea and they should all stop remembering forever. The monster never let him forget, but maybe he should, now that he can. Remembering hurts so much and he remembers everything. 

Divad sighs. "This is why we need David’s friends. Even if we made him leave right from the desert, he still would have been— He didn’t have us for so long. Farouk took away his memories and stuffed him full of delusions. We couldn’t protect him before and we can’t protect him now."

"You’re the one he needs," Dvd says. "You should be loving this."

"Do you think I want David to be upset?"

"I think you love it," Dvd taunts. "You get to be the one in charge. He can’t survive without you and you love it."

"You’re just jealous because he doesn’t need you," Divad shoots back. "Oh, it’s too hard just sitting around, watching David be hurt? That’s how I’ve felt for years and you can’t hack it for one week!"

That stings. "Yeah, well— Well, I’m not you. I can’t turn off my emotions like some kinda robot. I feel things. And right now I’m feeling done."

Divad actually shuts up for a whole minute. Then he says: "Then I’ll have to do your job for you. I’ll be the one who protects David from being hurt. And you’re the one hurting David right now, so— You want to stay here so bad? We’re gonna stay here."

Dvd narrows his eyes. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

Divad gets up and locks the bedroom door, cutting off the sound of Fake David's thoughts. "It means we’re not going back."

Dvd riles, then sits back in his rocking chair. "Nice try. I’m not gonna fall for your reverse psychology tricks."

"It’s not a trick," Divad says. "David believes we’re the ones who made him worse. Maybe he’s right. We should let David be with his friends so he can be part of the world. We’ve never been part of the world. We pretended that we were, but we were being David, not us."

Dvd rolls his eyes. "You’re not gonna trick me into going back."

"And I'm not letting you leave."

"Then I guess neither of us is going anywhere."

§

It doesn’t take as long as Ptonomy expects to find what he’s looking for, but he doesn’t hurry back to his new body. He reads on, looking at essays and case studies. At the stories of extreme child abuse and Holocaust survivors and people so broken that most believed there wasn't any hope for them, especially themselves.

When they first rescued David, he seemed— 

They knew he'd been misdiagnosed. Most of the people they helped had been misdiagnosed with something, and usually that misdiagnosis was a result of their powers. And there was also real trauma from those powers: from being misunderstood, from using them without guidance, from using them to hurt others and themselves. They didn't just rescue mutants from mental hospitals. They found them in abusive conditions or living homeless on the street. They found them in juvenile detention centers and prisons. Most of the mutants who needed help were good people in bad situations. With a little push, with the right support and plenty of therapy, they could turn their lives around and start giving back.

But some of the mutants they rescued didn't want to be helped. Some of them were like Walter: violent sociopaths who enjoyed using their powers to hurt people. Some were just greedy and amoral. Years of experience helped them filters those people out, but sometimes they still slipped through. And something about David set Ptonomy's instincts off right from the start. There was something— Not right about him. Ptonomy thought David was hiding things from them: his memories, his truths, his understanding of his powers. Something about David felt like a lie.

Ptonomy's instincts were right, but for the wrong reasons. The David they found in Clockworks was a lie, his past a construction of his mental parasite. Ptonomy doesn't know if he should believe the alters' insistence that David is still the same person he was before he was so drastically remade. There is reason to believe they're right, but— Even if they are, even normal life experiences can change who a person is. People are always changing. David's past is important — his real past and his fake past — but what matters more is who he is now and who he wants to be.

When they rescued David, they knew he'd have trauma. That's what the memory walks were for, to help him process his trauma and recontextualize it, to face the past from the perspective of the present and use the experience to heal and move on. But David's memories weren't real memories and they confounded at every turn. By the time they realized that there was another mutant inside of David, manipulating him and controlling him, Melanie was convinced that that was the answer to all of it. They knew he didn't have schizophrenia, but they didn't think about what else he might have. They didn't look past the parasite to the damage it left behind, because David seemed fine, he seemed remarkably functional. 

Maybe if Future Syd hadn't taken him so soon, they would have realized something was wrong. But Ptonomy thinks Syd is right and they would have missed it. They would have let things lie and in doing so let David's trauma fester. Because the alters came back once Farouk was gone, and the alters would have covered for David the way they always covered for him. And David did keep secrets, from others and from himself, because he didn't want to acknowledge his trauma either. It would have been an incredibly toxic combination for David and for everyone else, and the perfect combination for Farouk.

Future Syd accidentally did them a favor. She spared David that extra year and gave Summerland a second chance to save David from his trauma, and in doing so save the world. Ptonomy just wishes she'd done it any other way. But she didn't know the extent of David's trauma either. She believed he was beyond help and that the only option left was death. Euthanasia. But how to kill a mad god? With another mad god who seemed a little less mad. In her timeline, Farouk didn't live long enough for his monstrosity to be understood by anyone but David's alters. And David's alters might have shared everything with David, but they didn't share anything with anyone else. 

After the desert, they all knew David was sick, but they didn't know why or how. They'd searched for him for a long year, and then David just turned up one day and didn't remember anything. It was deeply suspicious, but Ptonomy has to own his mistakes. He didn't trust David because he'd never trusted David, and the amnesia was simply too convenient for anyone to believe. But he'd looked at David's memories and David didn't remember, just like David couldn't explain the gaps and rips during his memory walks. 

And David was keeping secrets. He was secretly helping Farouk, secretly working against Division 3 in service of Future Syd, who was secretly working to destroy David by pitting him against Farouk when there was still a chance for Farouk to win. It's been a lot to untangle. Farouk pushed David until he snapped, and the Admiral thought that David's delusions could be treated quickly because they were new. They hadn't had time to grow into monsters. A timely intervention could save the world, and if it failed, they could simply kill David the way Division 3 had always planned to kill him. And they could use David's therapy to control Farouk until they could find a way to kill him, too. Ptonomy agreed with the plan and set out to execute it.

But once they had David in therapy, once they found out about the alters— That's when Ptonomy realized this wasn't going to be easily resolved. That these new delusions were nothing compared to the delusions that have grown inside of David for decades, nurtured and fed by Farouk's torture and manipulations, and now they’re so big and all-consuming that they threaten to crack David open like an egg.

Ptonomy shudders at his own memory. His memories aren't as vivid here, aren't as immersive without his powers of perfect recall and memory walking. But even reading them from a hard drive is— Unpleasant. If he had any time to deal with his own trauma, he would. But he can't. He has to do what David does to survive: repress and avoid the memories. He's not in denial about the necessity of treatment, but if he fails, they'll all have a hell of a lot more trauma to worry about than one sudden and horrific death by insanity monster.

David doesn't believe he is a person. He describes himself as non-human, as a broken plate, as garbage. He thinks of himself as contaminated and evil, regardless of the reality of his actions. Like most main identities in a DID system, he's passive, guilty, depressed, dependent.

A lot of the research on post-traumatic stress has been done on soldiers. Otherwise healthy people go into a terrible situation, and then when they come out of it, they're different. The trauma has changed them in a fundamental way, left deep scars that may never truly heal. But as terrible as their suffering is, it's confined. The source of it is focused on specific events and actions. David's trauma from his possession, from Farouk's attack on Division 3 to rescue Amy, from the events in the desert — they’re war trauma. But they’re not why David hates himself. David has always hated himself, according to the alters. But David was just a child when he made the alters to protect him.

He was just a child. Farouk got into his head when he was a baby and became his world: his inescapable, omniscient abuser, who used different faces to terrorize David in different ways, and even to make David love him. And for all that Farouk made him forget, he left the trauma behind, the decades of scarring fear. That's the most convincing evidence that Past David and Now David are the same person, but it's also the reason why David can't accept that they are. David is still trying to dissociate from his trauma even as he works to face it. Ptonomy doesn't know if any telepath has ever observed the formation of a DID identity, but that might be what they're seeing now. With enough suffering, David might actually split again, and make Past David into a separate person to keep that trauma contained.

They have to keep that from happening. David's three identities have been remarkably stable, but David has been retraumatized again and again by his therapy. Some of that is necessary, inevitable, but it wouldn't be this bad if they weren't pushing David so hard. If Farouk wants David unstable, intense therapy is a perfect way to do it. Ptonomy thought they were being smart, helping David get better, but Farouk knows David from the inside. He can read everyone's thoughts. He needs David tortured in order to make him unstable, and they are torturing him.

So they have to rethink this. They have to be smarter than the monster. All this time they've been playing catch-up, learning what Farouk already knows, digging deep into David's trauma so they can find the heart of it. They've forced David to heal his broken relationships so that he can have the support network he so desperately needs. They've tried to reconstruct his real past so he can process it and move on. All of that was necessary and important but all of that has made him worse.

Ptonomy knows what's wrong with David now. He's looking at it summed up on a page. Complex trauma disorder. It's also known as developmental trauma disorder, because it describes the consequences of repetitive, prolonged trauma involving sustained abuse to young children as well as adults. It's a relatively new diagnosis. In the textbooks, this type of trauma is still treated as a subset of PTSD, as a footnote. 

They are similar, but the differences are vitally important. Prolonged abuse can't be treated with the usual methods. Prolonged feelings of terror, worthlessness, helplessness — especially when applied to a developing child, they deform the sufferer's identity and sense of self. Complex trauma disorder is why so many main identities are the way they are. 

Everyone missed it in David because Farouk disguised David's powers and his trauma as schizophrenia. They missed it because the alters helped David mask his symptoms. They missed it because Farouk changed his memories and gave him the illusion of a normal childhood. 

Ptonomy hoped that they could work at David's trauma from the outside in. Start with the manageable things, the recent things. Encourage him to heal his relationships so the people who care about him can help him, too, so they can make peace and find forgiveness. But complex trauma disorder can only be treated from the inside out. It's not about guilt over mistakes, it's not about who did what to who. It's about who David believes himself to be, deep in his heart. It's about the shame he feels for his mere existence. They thought it was guilt but it's all shame, and the difference between those two emotions is vitally important, too.

Shame is what makes David hurt himself and punish himself. Shame is what drives his need to kill himself, regardless of the external reasons compelling him at any given moment. That overwhelming shame is a monstrous delusion, growing larger with every mistake David makes, big or small; suffocating him with self-blame and poisoning everything he sees and feels and thinks. Shame is why David can't forgive himself for anything, even as he denies the pain others have made him suffer and forgives them for hurting him, because shame is why he feels he deserves to be hurt.

Cary got the closest of all of them to the truth. He saw that David had accepted the world Farouk made for him, that he integrated his suffering into his sense of self. The suffering became a punishment, and the worse the punishment, the more David believed he must deserve it. And the suffering was severe and prolonged and unimaginably cruel. Syd was right, too: what's remarkable isn't that David is sick. What's remarkable is that he survived at all. Even accounting for the support of his alters and his powers and Farouk's memory revision, David's survived things that no one else could. For all his pain and shame and suicidal ideation, he's still trying with everything he has to live, to connect, to be with the people he loves and to be part of the world and give back to it. 

He just needs the right kind of help. He just needs them behind him, pushing him forward in the right direction. He still needs to confront his trauma, to remember his past, to heal his relationships, but— He can't do that and survive if they don't treat his shame first. There's no pill for that, no neurochemical imbalance that Divad can manage. There are techniques they can teach David that will help, and they'll teach him those. But the only true antidote to shame is compassion. The compassion of others, the compassion of the self. That's the only answer anyone has found.

Ptonomy hasn't had enough compassion for David. He judged him from the start and found him wanting, without any real evidence to justify it. They've all withheld compassion for one reason or another, accepting David's delusion that he's unworthy of love or care. Division 3 couldn't see him as anything but a threat until David's therapy forced them to empathize with him. The world saw his brokenness and wrote him off, and that made the delusion grow as swollen and monstrous as Farouk's bloated form on Division 3's psychic filters. 

Maybe that's a lesson for all of them. Summerland's purpose, noble as it was— It drifted into something else, by the end, compelled by their desperation to survive Division 3's attacks. It became more about what their patients could do for them than what their patients truly needed. Ptonomy nurtured that delusion himself, with all his talk of war and acceptable losses. There's nothing acceptable about taking traumatized people and turning them into soldiers. That's exactly what Division 3 did and Summerland was supposed to be better than that. They were supposed to be about making the world a kinder place. They were supposed to be about compassion, but they forgot that, just like Oliver did. They used David the same way Division 3 used Walter: as a weapon they could fire at the enemy. It's to David's credit that he resisted being fired, that he refused to cause any more bloodshed. It took love to turn David into a weapon, into a world-killer: love for Syd, love for Amy, love for Lenny. Farouk weaponized that love, poisoned it with shame, but they can save it. And if they save love, they just might be able to save the world.


	40. Day 8: I didn't force him to do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @sydneybaretts for her Syd medical headcanon: https://twitter.com/sydneybaretts/status/1024111930691252225

The lab is quiet as Syd sits at one of Cary's computer terminals, scrolling through articles on dissociative identity disorder. She's alone here but also not alone. There are three empty bodies lying in apparent sleep: Melanie, Oliver, and Ptonomy. Melanie's soul is trapped on the astral plane and Oliver is outside of his body looking for her. And Ptonomy is back inside the mainframe, except that he never left it.

DID truly is the most normal thing in her life right now.

She's learned a lot, but the main thing she's learned is that every DID system is unique. There's no standard way for a system to be. Even the nature of their members can vary. Some systems have many temporary identities. Some identities are lifelong. Some become more dominant than the supposed main identity. Identities that are fully realized people are known as members of a system rather than alters. She wonders if she should suggest to David that he call Divad and Dvd members instead of alters. Maybe that will help, if they ever come back. Assuming they ever come back.

She shouldn't have talked to David about her therapy session. It's his day off and she knew that and she should have kept her mouth shut until he was recovered from the memory work. But she wanted to apologize to him the way she apologized to Dvd. She wanted him to know she understood him. She thought it would help, but it made him worse. It made David's system unstable, which is probably even more dangerous than David being unstable.

She's pulled from her reading by a motion out of the corner of her eye. She turns to see Ptonomy is back in his body and sitting up. 

"I'm glad you're back," she calls to him. "I have some questions about David's system. Do you think—"

"It'll have to wait," Ptonomy interrupts. "It's time for your session."

"Oh," Syd says, surprised. She thought that Ptonomy would be busy with David until late, like yesterday, but now is probably as good a time as any. "Everyone's still in the garden. It's helping David stay calm."

"I know," Ptonomy says. He moves to the sitting area, claiming one of the loveseats. "Amy will keep everyone there so we're not interrupted. Come sit down."

Syd leaves the computer and sits down on the sofa. She looks to Ptonomy expectantly. They talked about Future Syd last time, but she's not sure what they're going to talk about now. Ptonomy seems very focused, so she decides to just follow his lead.

"Before we begin," Ptonomy says, "I want you to understand how this is going to work. We're just going to talk, but it's going to be like the memory work we did back when we first found you. I'm going to tell you some things about yourself and you'll have the chance to react to that."

"Okay," Syd says, but she's not sure what that means. 

Ptonomy sees her uncertainty. "You haven’t given permission for Oliver to relay your thoughts to me and we’re respecting that," he explains. "But I have studied you the way I’ve studied David. I’ve reviewed all your old patient files as well as the surveillance footage of your time in Division 3, including your sessions with Melanie and especially the footage since David’s return. I have recordings of the things you’ve said publicly and privately, as well as the things David and his alters have thought and said about you. This means I’m aware of things you’ve thought in their presence when they were able to read your thoughts. Are you willing to proceed with that understanding?"

Syd wants to physically recoil, but she keeps perfectly still. She has to do this. If she doesn’t, Farouk will find some way to use her to make David end the world, and she doesn’t want to be used for that or anything else ever again.

"Yes," Syd says, accepting. 

"Good. I want you to tell me about two events I don’t have a clear picture of. What Farouk did to you in the desert and what happened to you and David when we found you on the roof after the monk’s death. You can start with whichever of those you're most comfortable with."

Syd's very glad that David isn't around to hear any of this. "I'll start with the roof," she says, and braces herself as she thinks back. "David and I were looking for the monk. He'd told me about Future Syd and that she needed him to help Farouk find his body. The monk was in Division 3. We split up, I went up to the roof, and then—" And then?

"The virus trapped us all in our heads," Ptonomy finishes for her. "We constructed realities where our core desires were realized. Do you remember your maze?"

"I— Don't know," Syd admits. "I was— I knew something was happening to me, but I couldn't do anything to stop it. And then there was an intrusion in my mind."

"David."

Syd nods. "I felt him. I didn't know who he was, not at first, and then—" Her mind wasn't clear, not until the virus lost control of her after the monk's death. "I was angry that he was there."

"He entered your mind without permission," Ptonomy agrees. "He entered my mind and Melanie's mind without permission. He did it to protect us, but it was still a violation because we couldn't consent to it. We didn't give him or Cary consent to know our core desires, to enter our minds and change them. They were trying to help, but that help hurt us."

It did. And that made her angry. She remembers sitting in the gallery when he approached her, and she was so angry with him for daring to enter her mind, for daring to think he knew who she was and what she wanted.

"A few days ago," Ptonomy continues, "you said you wanted to teach David to be strong. That you showed him over and over how to hold on to his pain and use it. You did that when he was in your head. Tell me about that."

"I didn't—" Syd begins, and falters. "I wanted him to be strong. He said I told him that the world was going to end, that we had to stop that from happening. And he was— I knew he couldn't do it. I thought Future Syd needed Farouk because David wasn't strong enough. So I tried to make him stronger. I know that was a mistake, I know that now. Love was how he survived and I shouldn't have tried to take that away from him."

"I'm glad you recognize that," Ptonomy says. "Love is exactly what David needs to survive. But it's not just about him. You wouldn't have taught him that if you didn't believe it about yourself. You believe love makes you weak."

Syd grips at her arms. She's watched Ptonomy work on David for days. She knows their situation is desperate enough that he can't pull any punches. But they're just getting started and she already wants to stand up and walk away. She pulls her pain tighter around her heart and keeps going.

"How did you teach him that?" Ptonomy prompts.

"I showed him my life," Syd says, calmly. "My childhood, my adolescence. The things I did to survive. I wanted to teach him to survive." David thought he knew who she was, so she taught him who she was. She taught him over and over, trapping him in her head even though he begged her to let him out, because she couldn't let him out until he accepted that he needed to be strong enough to save the world.

But she didn't make him strong, she made him weak. She made him worse, she made it easier for Farouk to break him in the desert. She did that to him all on her own.

"We should talk about the desert," Syd insists. 

"All right," Ptonomy says. "I know David's side of things. I told him about La Désolé and he went there to find Farouk's body. He left you a note. You had the compass. But you didn't go after him right away."

"No," Syd says. "I was angry. He left me behind, again."

"Not 'again'," Ptonomy corrects. "You know that's not true."

It still feels true, even though she knows it's not. Even though she always knew it wasn't. David didn't leave, he was taken. He was taken and he was afraid and he needed her to save him. That's why he made the compass and gave it to her. So if he was taken again, she would save him.

But he wasn't taken when he went to the desert. He left her. He absolutely left her and she was furious. She had the compass, she could have gone after him. But he didn't need her, so why should she have? He told her he wasn't going to save the world for her. The only thing he cared about was revenge. 

"I can't hear your thoughts," Ptonomy says. "So you need to tell me what you're feeling right now."

They're her thoughts. She doesn't have to tell them to anyone but herself. But— She already is. She's telling them to Farouk right now. She's giving him everything he needs to use her again. God, she hates him so much.

"I was angry," Syd grits out. "David already told me that he was going to stop helping Future Syd. He was going to destroy Farouk's body. He cared more about revenge than about saving the world." She doesn't want to say this, she doesn't, god she hates this. "He didn't care about me."

"You just told me that you didn't want David to depend on love," Ptonomy points out. "You wanted him to be self-reliant, like you are. Wasn't he just taking your advice?"

"He promised me that he would never leave me behind," Syd insists. "If we got lost, we got lost together. That's what he said to me."

"True," Ptonomy allows. "And we know why he broke that promise. Because Future Syd could have saved Amy's life and she chose to lie to him. She didn't have to let Amy die to save the world. You think she tried to give David a quick death, but if she just wanted that, she could have put him back after Farouk had already found his body. She could have taken him when he was a baby and saved him from Farouk. Future Syd wanted revenge. She wanted to hurt David the way he'd hurt her. So she let Amy die, she let all of us suffer, because our suffering meant David's suffering."

"No," Syd denies. "I wouldn't do that."

"That's exactly what you did. Maybe that's not what you'll do now that the timeline's changed, but the potential for it is still inside you. I know some of the things you've done to survive. I saw some of those things myself during our memory walks. If someone hurts you, you hurt them back with interest. You always have."

Syd holds herself very still. "I see we've moved on to the part where you tell me things about myself."

"I'm not telling you anything you don't already know," Ptonomy says, firmly. "You're very smart and very self-aware. But you rationalize your pain and your violence so you can protect yourself with them. Those are coping mechanisms that you learned to survive, but now all they do is hurt you and hurt the people around you. And you have used them to hurt David again and again. You hurt him with them today."

"What are you talking about?" Syd didn't do anything to David. "Dvd’s the one who upset him. I know I shouldn't have talked about the session, he wasn't ready, but—"

"I'm not talking about the session," Ptonomy says. "I'm talking about making him hold your hand."

What? "I was trying to help him. I did help him."

"And you hurt him."

Syd can't believe this. "Is this about how I practiced on him? Because I apologized for that."

"It's not, not directly."

"Then what?"

Ptonomy gives her a long, level look. "Then this is the part where I tell you things about yourself. You're going to be angry about them. You're going to want to hurt me and hurt David. And I'm telling you now that if you choose that path, you are gone. You will not be a part of David's therapy and Division 3 will do everything in its power to make sure you are never a part of David's life again, and Division 3 has that power."

Syd stares, astonished. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"

"You're not a monster, not yet," Ptonomy says. "But if you don't change, you'll become one. You'll become a woman willing to let innocent people die out of pure spite. I was that person, too. I let innocent people suffer because I was angry at Division 3 for killing people I cared about. I let people die and called them acceptable losses, and I'm sure Future Syd thought that Amy was an acceptable loss, too. My anger was as justified as yours and it was just as wrong. I want you to understand that what we're doing now is not about punishment or revenge. This is about making the right choices with our lives so we can make the world better instead of worse."

"All right, then," Syd says, coldly. "Tell me. I want to hear it."

"Do you?" Ptonomy asks. "I want you to remember what I said."

"Tell me," Syd insists.

"Okay. What I have for you is a new diagnosis. We already know about your antisocial personality disorder. That still stands. You have a clear history of aggression and disregard for social norms and for the rights of others. You made progress on those with Melanie, as well as on your haphephobia. In her notes, Melanie had her suspicions, but she wasn't sure. I'm sure. Your fear of abandonment, your impulsive anger, your black-and-white thinking, your manipulative behavior to David, all of these strongly indicate a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder."

Ptonomy was right, she is angry. She's furious. This is like the fake Clockworks all over again. She’s not like David. She knows who she is and she’s not going to accept a diagnosis that isn’t hers.

"Bullshit," Syd spits. Ptonomy doesn't respond, and that only makes Syd angrier. "I'm not going to let you change me just because you think you know who I am."

"Isn't that what David said a week ago?" Ptonomy says, cooly. "He didn't want us to turn him into something different, something easy and clean. He couldn't face what he did to you, what he became, and you can't face what you've done to him and what you've become. But neither of you is so far gone that you're willing to let yourselves become something worse. This is his chance to turn his life around, and it's your chance too. You can do it together."

Syd gives a disbelieving laugh. "You just told me that all I do is hurt him. You threatened to keep me away from him if I don't get help."

"We threatened to kill David if he didn't get help. Maybe that was wrong, maybe it made him worse at the start, but Division 3 made the right call in forcing him into treatment. Your situation isn't as dire. You don't have omega-level powers. You don't have DID and crippling trauma. Do you think David would be better off if we left him alone with all three of those things? Do you think you'll be better off if you let your trauma and disorders fester, ignored and untreated? You have what David doesn't: the choice to walk away. Maybe Farouk will force you back, maybe he won't. But he'll never, ever let David walk away. Never. I believe that you truly love David and that he truly loves you, but you both brought toxic issues into your relationship and if you don't both work on those issues, they're going to keep controlling you. They're going to keep making you do things that you don't want to do. They're going to keep making you hurt people and then one day they're going to end the world. And all Farouk will have to do is sit back and watch the fireworks."

Shit. _Shit._

He's right. She knows he's right. She's still furious and wants nothing to do with this diagnosis, but— She doesn't want to be the kind of monster that let Amy die. She doesn't want to end the world. She doesn't want Farouk to be able to use her ever again.

And she doesn't want to hurt David. She loves him. But somehow she keeps getting angry at him and hurting him despite that love. And— She doesn't understand that. She doesn't understand why she does that, why she'd want it. 

"Fine," she says, the word forced out of her. "What does any of that have to do with me hurting David by holding his hand? I helped him stay. I had to pry my hand free so Cary could take my place. David needs me."

"He does need you," Ptonomy agrees. "It's important to you that David needs you."

Syd narrows her eyes. "David needs a lot of help. He's sick."

"But you need to be the one to help him. You needed to be the one to help him by teaching him how to survive. You needed to be the one to help him accept his diagnoses."

"Now my book hurt him?" Syd asks, disbelieving. "You're the one who got him to read it."

"And that makes you angry. You wanted to be the one to get him to read it."

"It helped him," Syd insists.

"It did help him. I was able to convince him to read it by piquing his curiosity about something he needed to understand. He chose to learn about his dissociation and opened himself up. You tried to force it on him, just like you forced your coping mechanisms on him. Just like you forced him to take your hand today."

"I didn't force him to do anything. You weren't there, you can't even hear David's thoughts, not with Oliver gone."

"Division 3 is always watching, which means so am I," Ptonomy says. "I saw David's face. I didn't need to read his thoughts. You saw his face, too, but you didn't care. You let him suffer because that meant getting what you wanted from him. You know he feels like he doesn't deserve to be touched by you, you know it upsets him, but you put all that work into your haphephobia and you thought that earned you the right to touch him. You thought you deserved his love so you manipulated him into holding your hand."

Syd feels sick. "That is nothing like what David did to me."

"It doesn't have to be. There's all kinds of violations. Not every death is first-degree murder. But Future Syd forced him into intimacy, too."

"I did not," Syd insists. "David chose to have sex with her."

"That's not what Dvd said."

"Dvd always takes David's side, no matter what," Syd points out. "David and I talked about Future Syd and his feelings for her. We set boundaries and he agreed to them. He made a promise to me and then he went ahead and broke it. Again."

"And why do you think he did that?"

Syd huffs. "I don’t know, ask him!"

"I’m asking you. Why would David agree to boundaries with you, then have sex with Future Syd?"

"I wasn’t there."

"Dvd was," Ptonomy says. "Dvd can hear David's thoughts. He knows exactly why David slept with Future Syd, but you'd rather be angry than face the truth, so I'll remind you. He said they confronted Future Syd about Amy but she wasn't sorry. She kept pushing David to help Farouk so Farouk would kill him. When that didn't work, she used guilt to negate David's anger and make him vulnerable again. Then she asked if they could say goodbye. What would David do if you asked to say goodbye to him? Do you really think he could refuse?"

Syd could easily imagine David’s reaction to that even if she hadn’t seen it for herself. Wasn’t that what she loved about him, that he would do anything for her? Isn’t that why she was so angry with him in those last days, because he wouldn’t save the world for her?

"He should have known that I’m not her," she insists anyway.

"I was thinking about that," Ptonomy says. "From David’s point of view, you’re both Future Syd. He was taken and brought into the future twice, first in the orb meeting her, and second when he woke up in Division 3 and met you. How should he be able to differentiate between you from the future and you from the future?"

"The missing arm is a hint."

"In the surveillance footage, David repeatedly expressed difficulty in differentiating your two states. He told that to you and to the monk. In fact, you enforced that belief by telling him you trusted your future self because she was you. And I quote: 'If I said that you should do it, then you should do it.'"

Division 3 really is always watching. "Okay, so she’s me. And David will do anything I ask him to, except when he won't because I told him to do something else."

"In a healthy relationship, both partners should be able to make the right decisions for themselves. You don't want to take no for an answer, and David would rather hurt himself than refuse you. If he can't give you what you want, you punish him for it. And when he threatens you, you're willing to do anything it takes to make him suffer. Do you know what that sounds like? It sounds like Amahl Farouk."

Jesus. "If I'm that far gone, maybe Division 3 should kill me. Maybe I should kill myself."

"And what do you think that would do to David?" Ptonomy says, and that's even worse. "You're not a bad person. You don't deserve to die. You deserve to have love and happiness, just like David does."

"Does this mean Farouk has BPD, too?" Syd asks, dryly.

"Possibly," Ptonomy says. "But he's also a sadistic psychopath. You're not. You care about other people. Your relationship with David is mutual. His relationship with David is not. There's a term for what David is to both of you, actually. It's called a favorite person. That's someone that you obsess over, that you're emotionally dependent on. It's needing someone so badly that it's physically painful when they leave you, so you'll do absolutely anything to make them stay, including hurt them."

Shit, maybe she does have BPD. Every time David leaves her, it's so painful she can't stand it, and that what makes her angry. That what makes her punish him so he won't ever leave her again. That's why she can't stop hurting him.

"You win," Syd says, accepting her fate. "I have BPD and I need help. You don't have to lock me up with a crown on my head. Is there anything else wrong with me, while we're at it?"

"There is, but to understand that I need you to tell me what happened in the desert."

Syd doesn't know if she can. "Can we save it for our next session?"

"I wish we could, but we have to deal with this now. David desperately needs a safe environment. There are things we can't change about this situation, but the only people I'm allowing to be part of David's treatment are people he can trust. People he can rely on to keep him safe and put his needs first. People who love him and accept him as he is."

"And I don't?"

"Tell me about the desert," Ptonomy says. "What happened the morning after the storm?"

Syd sighs. "I woke up, went out and looked around. There was a giant hole in the ground." God, this part is embarrassing. "And then someone threw a rabbit out of it."

"A rabbit?"

"On a hook. I know, Farouk was— Messing with me. As usual. The rabbit was still alive, so I picked it up and pulled out the hook. And then Farouk reeled me in." She flexes her hand. The wound from the hook is still healing inside. She never had it treated properly after they got back. She's never liked letting doctors touch her body, so she's always taken care of herself. She probably should have let Cary stitch her up, but instead she has two new, livid scars. But no infection, so it's fine.

"Down into the labyrinth," Ptonomy prompts. 

"Yeah," Syd says, remembering. "Melanie was there, acting weird. She kept going on about men and love. She said— David never really loved me. That I was just— A thing for him to possess." God, it still hurts so much. She'd believed those words when they captured David, and everything she saw that day was filtered through them. "She said you can't convince someone they're wrong by giving them the facts, but a good story will do it every time."

"And that's what Farouk did?" Ptonomy asks. "He gave you a good story?"

"He said David had a gift and a curse. That Farouk was the gift, and the curse is that David's insane. I didn't believe that, not at first, but— He showed me things. Images of David, of the things he's done. Everything was— Confusing, out of context. It was hard to think straight. I think he was— Doing something to me. Forcing me to open my mind. I couldn't keep his ideas out of my head."

"He was," Ptonomy says, his voice softer now than it's been through the whole session. "What ideas did he force on you?"

"That David enjoyed what Farouk made him do," Syd says, feeling the pain she felt then believing those ideas and the pain it gives her now to have accepted them. "He showed me that David was torturing Oliver to find me. I knew it wasn't his fault, I knew David was being tricked, but— He was so— He wasn't my David, he was angry and cruel and he was enjoying it. He wanted revenge and he thought he was getting it and— That wasn't the man I loved. And then— Farouk showed me David and Future Syd together, and I was so angry at him. He broke his promise, he lied to me, and he wasn't trying to save the world, he didn't care about me, he didn't care about the world, he only cared about himself. And then I saw Future Syd talking to Farouk, and they said that David was the one who ends the world. That I needed Farouk so I could stop him, so I could—"

She cuts herself off, on the verge of tears. She holds her pain so tight around her heart, but it's been broken for a week and the tightness only makes the broken pieces rub painfully against each other.

"Farouk said—" She says, forcing herself to continue. "He said David had too much power. That he was tricked and abused and driven insane. That he tried to kill himself because he knew he was a monster. That it wasn't his choice, that it's just who he is, and— And all of that—" She looks to Ptonomy. "It was the truth. I knew it was the truth. And it's still the truth now, but— It's the monster's truth. He made me believe his truth and gave me a gun and told me to be the hero who kills the monster. And I went and I took that gun and I pointed it at David—"

And she fired. She believed all of that so much that she fired a bullet at his head.

She doesn't know if it would have killed him. Maybe David's powers would have come back in the nick of time and saved him. Farouk obviously wants David alive, but if he hadn't set her against David, David would have killed Farouk. So maybe Farouk was desperate enough to take the risk of losing his favorite person if it meant his own survival.

"Do you think it's true that David has too much power?" Ptonomy asks.

Syd opens her eyes. She doesn't know when she closed them. "I—"

"You said it was true," Ptonomy says. "I agree with most of that story. Farouk tricked and abused David and broke his mind. David tries to kill himself because he's ashamed of what he is. David never had any choice because the monster in his head took away his choices. But the monster didn't give David his powers. David grew up able to safely control his powers despite everything Farouk did to him, until the monster erased his memory so he couldn't control them. David's powers are the one thing that you shouldn't be afraid of. But that's what scares you the most."

"I never said that," Syd insists. 

"You said it yesterday," Ptonomy says. "Mind readers are too powerful to trust."

"I didn’t say that," Syd says, angrily. "I thought it. You said Oliver wouldn't relay my thoughts to you."

"No, but he's allowed to tell me if there's something that worries him. That worried him. And he was right to tell me. You’re a very private person and telepathy breaks through every defense you have. When you met David, when you chose to be with him, neither of you knew what he was. By the time he was aware of and able to control his powers, he was taken and we didn’t get him back for a year. You did a lot of thinking over that year. You put a lot of effort into finding him and giving him a reason to stay. But I think that year also gave you time to realize that the David you fell in love with wasn’t the David you were trying to find. That the two of you weren't who you were anymore. That’s what you said to Clark."

"God, I hate this place," Syd mutters.

"You hate having your words overheard and recorded. How do you feel about having your thoughts overheard? If David manipulated your thoughts, could you defend yourself? Would you even know if he changed you? Could you love someone with those powers? Could you trust them? Or would some part of you always believe that the existence of those powers made him a monster? That's the truth you couldn't refuse. That's the part of you that pointed a gun at David and pulled the trigger. And I think that's the reason Future Syd decided to destroy David rather than save him. Because she could have saved him. She could have done so many other things than what she did, but she didn't believe he should be saved. Do you believe that David should be saved? Do you believe he's worth saving? Or is it too late for him, like it was too late for your mother, and the kindest thing to do is—"

"Shut up," Syd spits, teeth bared. "Of course he should be saved!"

"That's the reaction I was hoping for," Ptonomy says, leaning back.

"God, you're a bastard," Syd says, furious. She feels like she's been stabbed in the heart, like he cut through all the pain she guards herself with. Her heart was already broken and now it's bleeding.

"I'm a lot of things," Ptonomy says, calmly. "Right now you need me to be a bastard, because gentle isn't going to work for you the way it works for David. You don't listen to gentle. You don't allow yourself to be soft. We have a lot of work to do to get you better and we can't do that if you won't listen. So I'm not going to make this easy for you, but if you let me help you, I'll help you. We both know you don't like letting people help you, you don't like opening up. You barely opened up to Melanie and she's the person you trusted most, which is why Farouk used her against you. But that's another problem you have. David trusts too much, but you don't trust anyone but yourself, so Farouk used Future Syd against you, too. Because she is you." He pauses. "You need to trust me and you're going to need to trust David. If you love him, if you want to be with him, if you want to stop hurting him, you need to open up and trust."

"Those aren't things I do," Syd says, tightly.

"Then you're going to have to learn. We’re done now, by the way."

"Thanks," Syd says, bitterly. 

"You’re welcome," Ptonomy says. "Your homework is to stop researching David’s problems and start researching your own. You think you understand yourself but you don’t, not yet. Put your energy into yourself."

"What about David?" Syd asks. "Should I leave? I don’t— I don’t want to get in the way of his treatment." She truly doesn't. She wants him to get better, even if that can only happen without her.

"He needs you here for that. So stay. Be with him, but don’t push him. Let him come to you. He’s just learning how to make choices for himself. Let him make them. Stop trying to be his therapist, he already has one. Be his friend instead. I did hear he needs a therapy buddy. He asked you to be that. That’s a big deal for him, to ask you for anything. He thinks he doesn’t deserve you. He’s afraid of losing you, just like you’re afraid of losing him."

"David doesn’t like other people telling his secrets," Syd reminds him. 

"I don’t think those are secrets to anyone," Ptonomy replies. "I messed up too, not getting David’s permission to discuss his experiences before our first session, but Dvd and Divad have the right to be treated as more than just parts of David. They’re the ones who should have asked David for permission to share his thoughts. Dvd and Divad are used to things working a certain way with David, and now their relationship is different. But different can be better. For you and them and David. Build your new foundations together."

"I don’t know if you noticed, but those parts of David hate me," Syd says. "And they’re right to. They’re not going to want to share."

"They’re used to sharing," Ptonomy points out. "When we get them back, maybe David will let you talk to them."

"I very much doubt that."

"Maybe," Ptonomy allows. "But trust is a two-way street. If you open up to David, maybe he’ll open up to you. You’ll never know if you keep shutting him out. If you’re always in control, what you’re doing is making sure he’s always powerless. Let him take care of you sometimes. Let him give back. That’s all he wants to do."

It is. She knows that because David told her, standing in the woods in Summerland. He just wanted to be useful and help and contribute something to the world he felt he took so much from. But David’s world has always been the people around him, the people he loves. He wanted to give back to them. He wanted to be useful to them, but no one let him because he was sick. So when they finally turned to him for help, he couldn’t say no. He couldn’t refuse them, even as they told him to do things that hurt and confused him. He owed them all so much and he wasn’t worth any of it so he had to do anything they asked. Anything she asked. 

But she didn’t ask him. She told him. She forced him. Anyone else would have pushed back and Syd would have stopped. But David couldn’t say no and she loved that. 

She really is like Farouk. She doesn’t want to be anything like him, but she is. It’s no wonder he used her so much. She made it so easy for him. He didn’t have to turn her into a puppet because she already wanted to do the same things to David that he did. 

And she's afraid of David's powers. She's afraid he'll use them against her and she won't be able to stop him. Farouk knew that even when she didn't. He made that fear a reality. He knew it would destroy them both, and it did. The love she had for David, for the David she met in Clockworks, for the sweet, gentle, helpless, sick man she thought she knew — It was already dying, but Farouk destroyed it.

But that love was unbalanced, like David was unbalanced without his alters. It was Syd taking more than she should and David giving too much, both of them so afraid of losing the other that they made that loss inevitable. Syd doesn't know how to be any other way than she's always been, but— She hasn't been happy with herself for a while. She's wanted to be better, but— For all the work she's done, she hasn't done enough. She's barely started. 

"We'll have our next session tomorrow?" Syd asks. 

"We will," Ptonomy says, warmer in response to her cooperation. "I'm not sure what time. It depends on what happens with David and Dvd and Divad. It's not good for them to be apart. If they're not back by the morning, once Oliver's awake, we'll try to reach them."

"I hope we can," Syd says. Her research didn't give her any reassurance that Divad and Dvd aren't gone for good. Identities can change, they can disappear for months or years, they can die and be replaced. The mind is a strange and fluid place for people like David. Maybe for everyone. 

Syd's never thought of herself as someone who needs certainty in her life, but she needs to be certain about herself. She thought she knew exactly who she was, but she didn't. Not as badly as David, and thank god for that. But there are things that match between them. 

Maybe she'll make a good therapy buddy for him after all.


	41. Day 8: David is love. David survived.

The lab feels emptier without Divad and Dvd in it. It shouldn’t; when they insisted on staying visible, he insisted on ignoring them as much as he could. Not that it was easy. They were very— Persistent. Loud, argumentative, opinionated. It was hard not to get pulled into interactions with them even though he knew that was the last thing he should do. He’s spent his whole life talking to things that weren’t there and it did nothing but hurt him. 

They’re not here now, and now that they’re gone—

They’re gone. They’re not coming back. David can’t feel them anywhere. Dvd was so angry, and Divad— He must have realized that wherever they went was better than staying here. That David will never be Past David, he’ll never be what they need him to be. His own mind knows he can’t be saved. 

He’s trying hard to stay calm, to stay steady on his own. The garden helped; Amy and Kerry and Cary help; meditation and deep breathing and all his old tricks help as much as they always did. It’s not as though he’s had a chance to stop practicing any of them. The stress of the past week has been enormous. Divad only kept him steady, he didn’t take away David’s emotions or his thoughts. He didn’t erase them, despite or because of how much David was afraid that he would. 

It’s selfish to miss Divad now. Divad gave and gave but David gave nothing back. He has nothing to give. He can’t remember Divad or Dvd and he shouldn’t and trying only made him worse. They were trapped in his head and he tortured them with his thoughts. He knows how tortuous his own thoughts are, and Divad and Dvd had to hear them all the time. At least when Oliver isn’t awake, the mainframe doesn’t have to hear his thoughts. He’s glad they can’t hear them now. He doesn’t want anyone to hear what he’s thinking. 

Farouk can still hear them, but David doesn’t care anymore. He can’t even feel angry about it. He just feels numb. 

He’s dissociating, he knows that, but it hurts too much to feel anything. If he lets himself feel, it will be so, so easy for him to put his foot all the way down in the wrong place. He knows that because it’s starting to feel like the right place again. So it’s probably best for everyone if he stays numb. He’s not allowed to die and he doesn’t deserve to live. He doesn’t want anyone to be tortured. If he doesn’t feel anything, it’s almost like he’s not being tortured either. It’s an efficient solution, for now. Until the shit beetle gets bored of David being numb and makes him scream again. 

He can’t stop that freight train from running him over. He just wishes it wouldn’t run over anyone else. He’s going to suffer no matter what — none of this will ever be over — but he wants to be the only one to take that pain. It doesn’t matter how much there is, his whole life has been pain. Even the love he thought he had was illusions, tricks to disguise more suffering. Divad and Dvd believed their purpose was to protect him, but David knows now that his own purpose was to be— What did Farouk call him? His victim, his prey. His hero, but that’s just another one of his cruel jokes. His sun, but that doesn’t make any sense at all. The sun is— Warm and strong and life-giving. David just takes. He’s a black hole, sucking the life out of everything around him, destroying everything he touches. If he gives off anything, it’s just— Radiation. Friction from matter pulled in and ripped apart. 

When they brought him back to the lab, they sat him down on one of the loveseats and wrapped a blanket around him. David curled up and thought about how the alters had looked sleeping here. He’s hurt them so much. He hurts everyone so much. 

He watches the others move around the lab, changing the bedsheets and cleaning. The spray bottle makes the air smell lemony. He watches it all like it’s far away. He feels very far away. 

Someone comes over. Sometimes people come over and check on him, and then they go away again. This time it’s Ptonomy. David’s glad that he’s mostly alive again. Ptonomy deserves to be all the way alive. 

"David," Ptonomy says, gently. "Is it okay if I talk to you?"

David swallows, blinks. He manages a small nod. 

"I’m sorry today didn’t go very well," Ptonomy says. "It was supposed to be a chance for you to rest and recover. That’s not what happened. I promised you wouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to today, and I meant it. But— I do have a way to make you feel better. All you have to do is listen. Is that okay?"

David gives another small nod. People are always talking at him anyway. He can’t stop them. He can’t stop them from trying to save him, even though there’s nothing to save. 

If Divad was here, he’d pull David back from that cliff. If Ptonomy could hear his thoughts, he would tell David he has to keep working hard to stay with them. David’s trying, but— That steep drop calls to him like the ocean, promising relief in its depths. 

Ptonomy’s so much more himself now that he mostly has a body. He’s so expressive. Was he always this expressive? Did he always furrow his brow and make the skin between his eyebrows wrinkle? Did the people or machines that made his face study the way the corners of his mouth curved when he frowned? It’s been almost two weeks since Ptonomy died. Maybe he looked different before but they all forgot, and now they just think he always looked like this because it’s how he looks now. 

David never saw Ptonomy look at him kindly before he died. How would he know to compare? Maybe it’s just the illusion of kindness. 

"I can’t hear your thoughts today, but I’m pretty sure you’re thinking a lot of terrible things about yourself right now. They must feel absolutely true."

Ptonomy waits for David to respond. David just looks at him. Of course he is, and of course they’re true. They’ve always been true. 

"But they’re not true," Ptonomy says, answering himself. "They’re caused by a delusion that’s been growing inside you your whole life: the delusion that what happened to you happened for a reason."

He pauses again. David almost musters a response, but— There’s no point. There’s no point in any of this, in the entire concept of trying to get better. He’s better off broken. The whole world is better off with him broken and numb because every moment he’s that, he isn’t being broken again and turned into something even more monstrous than he already is. 

"I’m going to tell you some things that won’t feel true to you at all. They’ll probably make you upset. I’m sorry for that. But they’re things you deserve to hear. They’re good things."

David doesn’t deserve good things. Whatever they are, they’re not for him. Good things are lies and tricks. True things are painful. Farouk taught him that over and over. He’s nothing but scars from all the times Farouk stabbed him with the truth, and David’s thick, he’s a slow learner, but he finally understands. This is his life. This is who he is. It’s what he deserves. 

"You are the strongest person I have ever met," Ptonomy lies, because that’s such an obvious lie. David almost laughs at it, but he’s so numb. 

"What you’ve endured," Ptonomy continues. "It’s unimaginable. It’s so unimaginable that we couldn’t imagine it. We couldn’t imagine the kind of absolute cruelty required to torture an innocent, blameless baby for its entire life. When we can’t understand something like that, we look for explanations. For reasons. There must have been a reason for it. We tell ourselves we suffer because we need to suffer, because we’ve earned it, somehow. And everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect, and being in pain makes it incredibly hard to avoid mistakes. And every mistake— That’s proof we deserved the pain in the first place. That feeds the delusion, helps it grow bigger and stronger. That delusion won’t allow any other ideas to flourish. It eats them so they can’t nourish you. It’s a parasite, keeping you weak so it can gorge itself on your strength."

A parasite. David knows all about parasites. He was full of one and David is a parasite, too, taking and taking and causing so much pain. 

"We got Farouk out of you," Ptonomy continues. "But we missed him at first. Everyone missed him for a long time. Parasites are really good at hiding. They have to be, because the truth is that they’re weak. They can’t survive without their host. They can’t reproduce, they can’t exist independently as a species. They lay eggs in their hosts and those eggs start out so small. Even if the parasite is big enough to see, its eggs aren’t. They latch onto us from deep inside and there’s nothing we can do to stop them because we don’t even know they’re there. We just think they’re part of us. We can’t imagine there’s something else growing inside of us, so we look for other reasons. We’re tired because we’re weak. We’re slow because we’re stupid. We’re in pain because we’re being punished because we deserve to be punished.

"But that’s what the parasite wants us to think. That’s its disguise. If we could recognize our symptoms for what they are, we would know something is making us feel that way and try to stop it. We’re tired because something is sapping our strength. We’re slow because something is taxing our minds. We’re in pain because something is hurting us very badly, for its own benefit, not ours. When we got Farouk out of you, we missed his egg. We missed the delusion he put inside you and nurtured at your expense. We thought you were clean, that you didn’t need any more treatment, but we were wrong. Now we know what’s inside you and we’re ready to give you the help you need. We have a way to get that delusion out of you, to weaken it and kill it before it kills you, but we can’t do that without you. We need your help. Just like when we got Farouk out, we can pull but you need to push."

That finally compels David to speak. "I didn’t," he says. "Syd got him out. He tricked her into— Into getting him out of me." He wasn’t saved. The monster always gets what he wants. It was just another part of his plan, leaving David’s body like that.

"He had to trick her," Ptonomy says. "He was dying. He was desperate. He threatened your life because he knew Syd couldn’t let you die. If we’d had more time, we might have been able to get him out of you safely, but we never got that chance."

"So what am I supposed to do?" David asks, with no enthusiasm. He won’t have a choice about it anyway. He’s just the patient being operated on. They’ve cut him all the way open and reached inside him and tried to fix him, blind to the fact that he’s too broken to fix, that every part of him is warped and cracked and irrevocably broken. Even if Farouk makes him forget, he’ll still be broken. 

Maybe he is himself after all. It doesn’t matter. Past David didn’t deserve to live either. 

"You’re already doing it," Ptonomy says, in those gentle tones. David misses the way the Vermillion made them musical. "You’re staying with us and you’re trying to listen. You’re trying to stay alive. It must be incredibly difficult to do those things. It must take everything you have just to keep breathing. Because that delusion is huge and strong and hungry, and it’s been feeding off you for a very long time. That’s why I said that you’re the strongest person I know. You’ve had two ravenous parasites growing inside you since you were a baby, and you’re still alive. You haven’t given up. You haven’t let them kill you."

David shakes his head. "I didn’t do anything."

"You’re alive," Ptonomy says. "You’re here with us and you’re getting help."

"He kept me alive," David says. "He won’t let me die. He made sure that— That no one will let me die. I’ve tried— I’ve tried so hard to die." That’s why Amy put him in Clockworks. That’s why Division 3 took his powers away. Because he’s sick and suicidal and can’t be trusted not to kill himself. Maybe that’s how he ends the world. He tries to kill himself and fails and kills everyone else instead. That makes sense. He can’t do anything right, he ruins everything, so of course he ruins his own suicide. 

"You’re in unimaginable pain," Ptonomy counters. "Of course you want to die. Death must feel like the only way to make the pain stop. But that’s what the parasites want you to think. They don’t want you to fight back. It’s another disguise, another trick. They don’t want you to see how strong you are. They want you to make it easy for them to eat you alive."

That’s— A horrifyingly vivid image, one David knows all too well. He shifts in his blanket cocoon, unsettled. 

"We can’t let them eat you alive," Ptonomy insists. "You don’t deserve that. No one deserves that. Right?"

David doesn’t know. No one else deserves that, but— He’s a parasite, too. He’s Farouk’s son. He’s what the monster wants him to be. The baby that the monster possessed, that baby isn’t him. He’s just— A delusion. He’s a delusion. 

"David," Ptonomy says. "You have to keep fighting. I know it’s hard. The delusion inside you— We’ve fed it, too. We helped it grow. We tried to help you but we hurt you, we made you worse. I made you worse. Division 3, Syd, Amy, we’ve all made mistakes with your treatment. But everyone makes mistakes. They shouldn’t define us. We’re more than our mistakes, and we always will be as long as we let ourselves learn from them. As long as we love ourselves more than we love our mistakes. That’s what we do, when we obsess over our mistakes, when we make them our world. We love them, we give them everything. But they’ll never give us anything back. They can’t. If we nurture them, we make our own parasites. We eat ourselves alive."

That’s a horrifying image, too. David must be— Riddled with parasites. There can’t be anything left of him. He must have been eaten alive a dozen times over by now. He’s just— Shit that’s been eaten again and shat out again. No wonder Dvd calls Farouk the shit beetle. David is the ball of dung that the scarab rolls around and eats and lays its eggs in. 

Ptonomy looks at him for a while before he speaks again. 

"Would you like to hear about one of my mistakes?" he asks. "The biggest mistake I’ve made with you was forgetting you’re not safe. That’s the first rule of trauma recovery. You have to get the victim into a safe environment. They can’t start to heal if they’re still being terrorized. And you aren’t safe. Farouk stays away from us because he wants us to forget that. But you know that he can’t stay away from you, that all of this is— It’s another trick to hurt you. It’s torture. And it is. I tortured you for him and I’m sorry for that. That was my mistake. But what isn’t a mistake, what was never a mistake, is why he uses us to hurt you. Why he used Amy and Syd and Lenny to hurt you. He uses us because we love you. For all our mistakes, we love you. And for all your mistakes, you love us. Don’t ever let anything make you forget that. Everyone in this room loves you and you love them. That love is what makes you strong. It’s what keeps you alive no matter what the parasites do to you. That love is who you are. Not your mistakes. Not your pain. You are love, David."

He’s love?

That— That doesn’t— It's impossible, obviously. It’s another lie, like the lie that he’s strong. Like the lie that he can be saved, that there’s anything left of him to save.

"You don’t have to believe that now," Ptonomy says. "We believe it for you. Amy’s believed it for you your whole life. She loves you so much. And Syd loves you. She’s here because she wants to save you, because she believes you’re worth saving. And me and Kerry and Cary, we’re your friends and we love you, too. We know what happened to you wasn’t your fault. We know you love us and want us to be safe, too. That even when you make mistakes, you make them out of love. Because that's who you are. David, you are love. And you don’t have to believe that now but you have to try. You have to try to love yourself. It’s going to be hard, maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever done. But I know you can do it because you have so much love for everyone but yourself. You have so much compassion for everyone but yourself. You don’t want anyone else to suffer the way you’re suffering. I know because I’ve heard you think those thoughts. You want to spare everyone else from the pain you feel. You made Dvd and Divad to try to save parts of yourself from that pain. And you did. You saved two pieces of yourself. You just have to save the rest. You have to save David."

"They’re gone," David says. "I didn’t save them from anything. I trapped them and I hurt them and—"

The numbness must be fading, because David’s crying again. He shouldn’t cry. He doesn’t deserve to cry when he’s the cause of someone else’s pain. But it hurts so much. When he hurts them, he hurts himself. He hurts right along with them. 

"You’re in constant, indescribable pain," Ptonomy says. "You’ve always done the best you could, and you’ve done amazing things. You help people. You make the world better. You make us better, you make Division 3 better, you fought the monster and won. You’re fighting in a long war but you’ve won battles and every battle counts. The monster wants you to dismiss those battles, but they happened. They were real and his losses were real. Your victories were real. Every victory is real. Even if you lose ground, that was ground you held and you can win it back. You can win it for good. 

"But you have to fight his delusion. You have to learn to love yourself so you can see how strong you truly are. How brave and kind and heroic you are. You are a hero, David. You’re a hero every time you choose to keep breathing, every time you stay with the people who love you. Every time you cry, you’re crying out of love. Your sadness and grief are born from love. You wouldn’t feel them if you didn’t love so much. You wouldn’t care about any of us at all if you couldn’t love. We’d just be things to you, objects to own and use and throw away. I know your thoughts, and I know you don’t believe that any person deserves to be treated like an object. The delusion makes you think you’re not a person, but you are a person. You deserve love just like everyone else. You deserve to be safe and loved. And I wish we could keep you safe, but what we can do is love you. We can love you so much that you can’t help but love yourself."

David stares, bewildered. "I don’t— I don’t know what that means."

"It’s new for me, too," Ptonomy admits. "But that’s the best treatment for people like you. So we’re going to learn it together. There are a lot of other people like you, David. Too many. The world has been an indescribably cruel place to so many people. None of them deserved their pain either. They didn’t deserve to be taken from their families or for the people they trusted to hurt them. They didn’t deserve to be rejected by society and hunted by the world. They didn’t deserve to be tortured. They didn’t deserve to be—" He pauses. "They didn’t deserve any of those things or anything else that was done to them. Because they’re people. And you’re a person, too."

David isn’t a person. He can’t be a person, because all those things were done to him but he deserved them. He knows he deserved them. "I deserved them," he insists, aloud. 

"You were a baby," Ptonomy points out. "How could any baby deserve that?"

"I— I don’t know," David admits. "But I— I know I did. He must have— Seen something in me. Something just like him."

"So he punished you for it? For being like him?"

"I don’t know," David admits.

"It’s hard to think the way a monster thinks," Ptonomy says. "It’s healthy to be horrified, for your mind to pull away. But when you pull away from the truth, you make yourself vulnerable to ideas you should reject. Like the idea that the monster loves you. Like the idea that you’re just like him, because you were born wrong or made wrong by him. Those are his ideas, not yours. They’re the monster’s truths, not your truths. Tell me your truths."

David stares, unprepared. He hasn’t thought about his foundation in a while. "Um. That David is still David. That I didn’t— I didn’t want what happened to me. That it wasn’t my choice."

"Good," Ptonomy says. "Now what truth did you learn today? What is David? How did David survive the monster?"

"He didn’t," David says. 

"That’s the delusion," Ptonomy insists. "That’s you pulling away from the truth. You just told me your truth is that David is still David. David has always been David. You have always been yourself. You have always kept fighting no matter how much it hurt to stay. You have always been part of the world and the people who love you. So how did you do that? How did David survive?"

"I—" David— How did he survive? Did he survive? He can’t be sure. He doesn’t— it could all just be another trick. It’s probably another trick. He— He couldn’t have survived. Who survives being tortured for thirty years? He must be someone else. He must be. But— 

Amy loves him. She’s always loved him. Even though she made mistakes, she made them out of love. She didn’t want him to die. He’s her Davey. She doesn’t care that he's crazy and a mutant and three different people. She loves him anyway. 

And Syd— He hurt her so badly, he ruined everything, but— She’s still here. She still loves him, somehow, even though she shouldn’t. She held his hand. She wants him to get better. She’s always wanted him to get better. 

And Lenny— She’s suffered worse than anyone, because of him. He can’t even face her. But she’s here. She talked to him when he was sitting on the floor. She’s getting a new body soon. He’ll be able to see her again. 

And Kerry. She’s been so kind to him. She’s brave and direct and naive and she sees something in him that makes her want to be more. He made her want to be in the world, to stop hiding. 

And Cary is— He’s the one who got David through his diagnosis. One of the darkest moments in his incredibly dark life. Cary’s words have helped him survive all of this. There’s so much love in him. 

There’s so much love in all of them. And Ptonomy must love him, too, to work so hard to save him. To fight the monster. And Dvd and Divad— they love David. Maybe he’s their David. He— He wants to be David. He wants to be— Himself. Whoever that is. He wants to— To love himself. If he can. Because everyone else loves him and— And he loves them, even though it hurts so much to love. 

"David is— Love?" David tries. It feels— Unnatural to say those words. It feels wrong. He can’t be love. There’s nothing good in him. There never has been. He’s disgusting and sickening and a monster. He should be killed, not loved. He should be loathed and punished. 

But Ptonomy says that’s the delusion. The parasite. That the parasite believes those things and he’s not the parasite. He’s David. David isn’t the parasite, he’s the host. He’s— He’s being eaten alive, but that means he’s still alive. And if he’s alive— If he’s alive, maybe they can save him. Maybe they can get the parasite out. They got the first one out. 

"David is love," Ptonomy confirms. He picks up the notebook from beside him and opens to a blank page. He holds the notebook out. "Write that down."

David pushes back the blanket and reaches out. He takes his notebook and he takes the pen Ptonomy offers him. He brings the pen to the page. 

_David is David,_ he writes. _I didn’t want what happened to me. It wasn’t my choice._

He pauses, takes a breath. Takes another. 

It feels like a lie and he can’t put lies into his foundation. But— It doesn’t feel— _not true_. That doesn’t make any sense. Either something is true or it’s a lie. It can’t be both at once. 

He doesn’t believe he’s love. He can’t possibly believe that. But the parasite doesn’t want him to believe it and everyone else does. He doesn’t want to believe the monster. He wants to believe Amy and Syd and Kerry and Cary and Ptonomy. He wants to believe Dvd and Divad. If he ever talks to Lenny again, he’ll want to believe her. 

He trusts them more than he trusts himself. He probably shouldn’t. But he does. 

_David is love,_ he writes. _David survived._

He looks at the words he just wrote. David is love. David survived. 

They’re not his truths, not yet. But they’re definitely not the monster’s truths. He can start with that. He can try to believe them. For the people he loves, if not for himself. Because he does love them. And they love him, even though they shouldn’t. It would be— Monstrous, to deny that. He doesn’t want to be a monster. 

Tears fall on the page. 

"David?" 

"I made them leave," David says, and he realizes that he’s grieving. He barely knows Dvd and Divad but he’s grieving them. They’re parts of him. They have been almost all his life.

No. They’ve always been parts of him. He just made them into people. He made them separate from himself, but they’ve always been parts of him. He made them into— Into his brothers. And now they’re gone. He barely knew that they were his, and now they’re gone. 

They’re better off without him. But he wants them back. They’re loud and stubborn and hostile and controlling. But they’re parts of him. They’re his brothers. He would have done anything to get Amy back, but the monster took control and all he could do was watch and scream. He would have done anything to keep Amy safe, but he didn’t know she was in danger until it was too late. He tried to find her in Lenny but she was hidden too deep. And now she’s in the mainframe and he can’t help her. 

But Divad and Dvd are parts of him. They’re inside of him, not the mainframe, not Lenny. And if they’re inside him— He must be able to go wherever it is they went. Because they’re identities and he’s an identity, too. 

"I have to find them," David tells Ptonomy. "I have to apologize. But— I don’t know how to find them."

"Divad and Dvd?" Ptonomy asks. Because of course, he can’t hear David’s thoughts because Oliver isn’t here. But how will they find his alt— How will they find his brothers without Oliver?

"Can you help me find them?" David asks, desperately. "I need to find them."

"Of course we will," Ptonomy says, smiling. "We'll find them together. We’ve always been good at finding people. That's how we found you."


	42. Day 8: They can all be one big happy adoptive family.

Take a break. Clear his head. If Ptonomy tells him to do that one more time, David will— He doesn’t know what he’ll do. Probably nothing, but it will be a very annoyed nothing.

He’s ready to find Divad and Dvd, to bring them back from wherever they went. They’re his brothers and he’s going to save his brothers. But no, he has to rest and have a snack. He has to write his foundation again. He doesn’t have to fill up his notebook but he needs to fill up a page. He was neglecting his foundation for all the memory work and that made him worse so from now on he has to work on his foundation at least once a day. At least three times a day, like meals. Kerry came up with that idea. David glared at her but she just smiled proudly.

_David is David. I didn’t want what happened to me, it wasn’t my choice. David is love. David survived._

It’s a lot to believe. He alternates between believing some of it, believing none of it, and wanting desperately to believe all of it. But however much he believes or doesn’t believe them, they’re his foundation. They’re his truths, David’s truths. Not the monster’s, not the delusion’s. His. Whoever he is. 

Whoever he is, Amy is his sister and Divad and Dvd are his brothers. They’re the Haller family. Amy said that she wants them to be a family and sit together and talk. They’re all they have left. They’re all parts of him and he doesn’t want to lose them. Not just Divad and Dvd. Amy is a part of him, too, and he’s a part of her. They’ve shared their whole lives together, even when they were apart. Sometimes siblings are apart, and then they’re together again.

Amy came up with that idea. He didn’t glare at her for that; he hugged her Vermillion instead. She’s going to get her new body soon and it’s hard to wait for the moment he can see her face again. But he’ll get their brothers back and Oliver will come back and then Amy will be really back and they’ll be able to sit together and talk.

He hopes. 

He’s not sure because they haven’t come back. He thought that maybe, while he was doing the work to take care of his mind and his body— Maybe they would come back on their own and he could apologize straight away and everything could go back to how it was. Not that he wants to go back to how it was. He wants them to be— Not what they were. He still doesn’t know how they used to work, before Farouk tore them apart. He never asked and they didn’t tell him. 

It doesn’t matter. They haven’t come back so he has to go to them. He has to find them wherever they’ve gone, somewhere deep inside himself. Like Amy was deep inside of Lenny, but— He hopes it’s not like that for them. He hopes they haven’t trapped themselves that way, so they’re forced to watch the world but can’t reach it. It must be different, whatever it is, because David was already torturing them with that and that’s why they left. Or part of why they left.

_David is David. I didn’t want what happened to me, it wasn’t my choice. David is love. David survived._

He finishes the page and resists the urge to keep going. If he keeps going he might never stop, and he has to stop thinking about himself so he can— Think about himself. His system. His brothers. His selves.

Even with his part of his mind semi-functional again, it’s still all really confusing.

"All finished?" Cary asks, sitting down on the sofa beside him. He looks approvingly at the full page, very big-brotherly, the way he does when Kerry finishes all her food without having to visibly choke it down. David has noticed Kerry and Amy together and feels vaguely like Cary and Amy decided to merge the Haller and Loudermilk families when David and Kerry weren’t looking.

Why not? If David is going to accept his hallucinatory fractures of himself as his siblings, why not Kerry and Cary? Why not everyone? If they keep it up, they can even adopt Clark and his husband and their adopted son. They can all be one big happy adoptive family.

He means to think it sarcastically, but it comes out— Wistful.

He shakes it off and closes his notebook, puts it on the coffee table. "All finished," he agrees. "Now can we find them?"

"Now we can find them," Cary agrees. He waves Ptonomy over and Ptonomy and Amy take a loveseat. Kerry joins them, too, and sits on David’s other side on the sofa.

Syd hangs back. She’s been reading her book again, highlighting and making notes, but if it’s about one of his diagnoses she hasn’t mentioned it to him. She’s barely talked to him at all since Dvd and Divad left. Not in a standoffish way, like it’s because of something he did. She just seems— Focused. Internal, the way Syd can be sometimes. She’s dealing with something private and that’s always been— He isn’t allowed into that space. He wasn’t when they were together and he certainly isn’t now.

"Syd, would you like to join us?" Ptonomy asks.

Syd looks up, surprised. She closes the book. "Um, okay." She comes over and sits in the other loveseat. Her posture is neutral but tense. Syd’s never given much away, but David always did his best to understand her, to know her, as much as he could. As much as she allowed. He didn’t really notice how little he was allowed until now, because he was drugged senseless in Clockworks and then spent five weeks being turned in circles and tortured and generally run into the ground. The sixth week hasn’t been a holiday either, but— He got to know everyone else better. Acquaintances turned into friends, he rediscovered his family, he just has so many more people he’s close to all at once than he’s ever had before. And none of them are like Syd. They’re not all as open as Kerry or as loving as Amy, but even Ptonomy is more open with him than Syd, and Ptonomy used to hate him.

He can’t read Syd’s mind anymore. He tried not to once he could because he knew it made her uncomfortable, but he couldn’t truly avoid hearing her thoughts and he relied on them to understand her. Not that they helped him much, obviously. But without them, he feels like it’s hard to know her at all. Maybe she never wanted him to in the first place. Maybe—

"David," Ptonomy says, drawing him back. "It’s time to get started."

"Right," David says, bracing himself. "What do I have to do?"

"Nothing yet," Ptonomy soothes. "First I think we should talk about what happened this morning."

"But—" 

"We’ll help you find them," Ptonomy assures him. "But it’s also important for us to understand why they left. They need our help but we haven’t helped them. We couldn’t see them and that made it easy to forget they were there."

"I could see them," David admits. 

"You could," Ptonomy agrees. "And they could have asked for help, but I don’t think they know how. We all made mistakes, but that’s okay because we’re going to learn from them and try not to make them again."

It all sounds very— Reasonable, when Ptonomy puts it that way. When Divad and Dvd left, it felt— Catastrophic. Final. Proof that David was every single terrible thing he’d ever thought about himself. 

A lot of things have felt catastrophic and final. It was all so undeniably true. 

But when he thinks that way, it’s the delusion thinking for him. It’s the parasite tricking him into letting it eat him alive. He doesn’t want to be eaten alive so he has to fight back. He has to— Love himself. Somehow. It feels wrong, very wrong, but he’s trying. 

He reaches to his left and Kerry’s hand is right there. She squeezes back and it helps. He’s steady. He can do this. He nods to Ptonomy. 

"I know Syd said some things that upset you," Ptonomy says, in that calming tone. "We’re not going to talk about that now. But you were upset. Did you think something that upset Dvd?"

"Yes," David admits. He tries not to think about Syd, even though she’s right there, watching him, sitting perfectly still. "I was angry and— I didn’t want them to talk to anyone. Not when I can’t—" He stops, struggling already. Divad isn’t here to keep away the panic and he can feel the edge of it. He takes Cary’s hand, too, and holds tight to him and Kerry. 

"They shared your private thoughts without your permission," Ptonomy says for him. "They’re parts of you that you can’t control. They know everything about you, but you can’t read them. That’s a very unbalanced relationship."

"I have an unbalanced relationship with myself?" David asks. 

"Your relationship before was— It formed in crisis. It was shaped by the pressures around you and your need to survive. From what I understand, that relationship became dysfunctional."

David stares. "What?"

"It’s difficult to say, because you can’t remember your past and Divad and Dvd are extremely reluctant to share any information they don’t have to. Their whole lives have been defined by the absolute secrecy they felt was necessary to protect you. But Dvd has made it clear that he protects you from Divad. And Divad has been verbally abusive to you."

David feels like this is all getting out of hand. "Dvd’s the one who was angry. Divad only— He left because— He said he’d calm Dvd down."

"But he hasn’t come back," Ptonomy says. "When he couldn’t help Dvd, he should have come back to help you. He must have known how upset you’d be. But he hasn’t come back."

"Maybe they can’t," David defends. "Maybe they’re trapped. That’s why I have to find them."

"This isn’t a rescue mission," Ptonomy says. "They’re not being held captive. Their lives aren’t in danger. You had a fight and they stormed out. Like— Like the fights you had with Philly."

Philly. He and Philly had a lot of fights. She was always trying to help him, but he resented her help. She was always trying to make him into something he wasn’t. She couldn’t accept that he was sick and broken. She couldn’t accept that he couldn’t be saved. 

Their relationship was a disaster, but David always blamed himself. He was the one in a drug-fueled downward spiral. He was angry all the time and he took it out on her. He never understood why she kept coming back. If he hadn’t hung himself after that last fight—

"David?" Ptonomy prompts. "What are you thinking?"

David swallows. "Do you think— Maybe I shouldn’t— All we did was fight, and— That’s all I do with them."

It’s not a rescue mission. They left because he hurt them. Forcing them to come back, it would be like Philly coming back. He’ll only hurt them again. That’s what he does. 

Is that— Is that the delusion thinking that? Or is it him? How can he even know? It’s like— When he looked into Lenny’s mind and couldn’t tell the difference between her thoughts and Farouk’s thoughts. It’s hard to know he’s here at all when there’s been so many other things inside him, thinking for him. 

"That’s not really an option," Ptonomy says. "They’re parts of you. They can’t leave and neither can you. You need to work together and build a healthy relationship."

A healthy relationship. Is that even possible? It’s not like he’s ever been healthy enough to have one. He’s sick and everything he does is tainted by his sickness. 

That’s probably the delusion again. But if the delusion is thinking all of his bad thoughts, there can’t be much left of him. It’s been eating him alive for a very long time, according to Ptonomy. How can he fix his relationship with Divad and Dvd if he’s too sick to fix himself?

"David?" Cary calls, concerned. He puts his other hand over David’s heart. "We love you and we’re here for you. You’re doing so well. We know how much you’re hurting and your pain is real."

David looks at Cary. Cary’s face is kind and his eyes are full of compassion. His hand is solid and warm against David’s chest. 

Kerry touches him too, her hand on his arm. "We love you. You’re not weak or bad or wrong. You’re really strong, just like me. We’re gonna fight that delusion together. It’s not gonna win."

David looks between them, uncomprehending. Then he remembers what Ptonomy said: that they were going to love him so much he couldn’t help but love himself. That’s how they’re going to get the delusion out of him. With love. 

He doesn’t deserve love. That certainty is so overwhelmingly strong, it makes it hard to even breathe. It makes him want to stop breathing because he’s such a shameful thing and he should never be loved. But he’s breathing despite his shame at every breath. Cary and Kerry are holding his hands and touching him and telling him they love him. And each breath gets a little easier and easier until the shame subsidies.

He feels like he ran a mile. He slumps back against the sofa, exhausted, and Kerry and Cary remove their free hands. 

"David?" Ptonomy prompts. "Tell us what just happened to you."

David tries to find the words. "It was like— A panic attack. But— I wasn’t afraid. I was—" He stops, struggling. "Ashamed."

"A shame attack," Ptonomy says, thoughtfully. "And Cary and Kerry helped?"

David nods. He feels— It’s hard not to feel ashamed about that, too. Not because they gave him love, but— Because he accepted it and he shouldn’t have accepted it. But their love— It helped. He feels better for letting them love him, even if he feels bad about it, too. 

"Shame attacks are a part of your developmental trauma," Ptonomy explains. "They’ve been as big a problem for you as your panic attacks, but no one gave you any tools to manage them. I didn’t recognize them for what they are until I learned about the disorder. I heard your thoughts but I didn’t understand them."

A shame attack. He has tools to deal with panic attacks: breathing exercises, self-soothing techniques. So much of his existence has been about managing his emotions. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that his shame can’t be controlled either. 

"How do I—" David starts. "What should I do about them?"

"Shame attacks are similar to panic attacks. There’s some kind of trigger, an emotion or a memory or both. There are tools to manage the symptoms, but the only long-term solution is to deal with the source of the emotion. All of these attacks— Think of them as time capsules of emotion. You take a path that leads you to one, and when you open it, all the painful thoughts and feelings rush out and overwhelm you. You buried those time capsules yourself when you couldn’t survive what they contained. It’s part of your dissociative amnesia, too. You tried to forget but the memories and feelings don’t go away. They’re just hidden, and then you’re not prepared to deal with them when something makes them come back."

The minefield. Farouk might have buried some of those land mines, but David buried the rest of them himself. The thought of digging up all those buried memories is absolutely overwhelming. He can barely stand to remember anything at this point. But suppressing everything is why he can’t manage his emotions. God, he’s such a disaster.

"I know you’re scared," Ptonomy soothes. "Healing from developmental trauma, from complex trauma— it’s painful. Facing the truth about what happened to you— Confronting it means reliving it, including the things so terrible you dissociated from them when they happened. It’s not going to feel good to do that. Processing and grieving hurts. But what hurts more is staying unhealed. You are strong enough to heal, I truly believe that. You’re an incredibly strong person to have survived this far and if you put that strength into your healing, you will succeed. You will get to the other side of that journey and you will heal. And on top of that, you have all of us, ready to help you and give you the love you deserve. Because you absolutely deserve love, David. You deserve love. There’s no shame in love."

There’s no shame in love. David likes that. He doesn’t want to forget it so he grabs his notebook and writes it down. It’s not a part of his foundation, but he has other important words. His mantra. He takes a moment and writes it out, revises it again. He needs to remember it, repeat it, just like his foundation. 

_There are things I lost that I’ll never get back. But I’m here and I’m not alone. I’m loved and there’s no shame in love. I’m strong enough to heal._

Cary looks at what he wrote and makes a small noise of surprise. "What’s all this?"

"Um, my mantra," David admits. He’s thought these words so many times, but he’s never written them down. And of course Cary’s never heard his thoughts. "I’ve had mantras before, and— After you came and— You helped me a lot. Um. Thank you."

Cary looks deeply touched. He pulls David into a hug. "I’m so glad my words helped you. Thank you for staying with us."

"Can I see?" Ptonomy asks. David hands him the notebook. 

"They’re not— Truths, exactly," David explains. "More like reminders. When I’m feeling— When it’s hard to keep going."

"This is excellent," Ptonomy says, smiling. "I really like this version. I’m sure we’ll find more good things to add to it."

David hopes so. They’re not much, his foundation and his mantra. But they’re hard-earned. He got them from the people who love him. They’re— They are their love for him, the pieces of it he’s been able to accept. Seeing it all together like this in his notebook, it’s— It’s more than he realized. 

Maybe they’re right. Maybe the new part of his mantra is true. Maybe he really is strong enough to heal, if he did all this when everything felt so hopeless. Maybe he really has been fighting all along. 

Maybe he’ll be able to get his brothers back and build a healthy relationship with them. 

David takes a deep breath and lets it out. Whatever terrible things happened to the three of them, however Farouk twisted them all up— He wants to help them the way everyone else has helped him. They didn’t deserve what happened to them. Even he didn’t deserve what happened to him. 

He didn’t deserve what happened to him. 

They’ve been telling him that but this is the first time he's ever actually believed it. 

"I need—" He reaches for the notebook and Ptonomy hands it back. 

David pauses before he writes. Should this go in his foundation or his mantra? Is it a truth about himself or is it something he needs to remember? Maybe there’s not much difference between the two when it comes down to it. But they feel different. They help him in different ways. He looks at them again and makes a decision. 

_David is David. I didn’t **deserve** what happened to me, it wasn’t my choice. David is love. David survived._

Yes. That feels better. He feels— Lighter, for writing that. For believing it, for as long as he's able to believe it. 

He shows the others. He's not ready to say it aloud. It's too fragile a truth for that. But even if the delusion fights back and retakes that ground, he knows he won it, if only for a moment. It was his and he can take it back again. One day he can take it back for good.

"Very good," Ptonomy says, impressed. "I think we're almost done. I want to give you one more thing before we move on. It's a compassion exercise. It's a way for you to help yourself when we can't be with you."

"Okay," David says, paying attention.

"When you feel a shame attack coming on, don't fight your emotions. Don't dissociate from them. Stay with them and put your hand over your heart, just like Cary did." Ptonomy puts his hand over his heart. "And then I want you to say something kind to yourself. That could be your mantra or your foundation or anything you feel able to say with love. Say it to yourself, just like Cary and Kerry said things to you. Keep doing it until the attack is over."

David puts his hand over his heart and practices. _I didn't deserve what happened to me, it wasn't my choice. David is love. David survived._

"How does that feel?" Ptonomy asks.

David tries it again. It feels— New. Awkward and a little strange. It doesn't feel as good as when Cary and Kerry did it, but— It does feel good. "I think it'll help," he decides. 

"I think so, too," Ptonomy says, warmly. "Do you feel ready to go talk to Divad and Dvd?"

David nods. It's not a rescue mission. No one is in any danger. But he does need to help Divad and Dvd the way he's been helped. He needs to bring them back so they can be part of the world, too, however much that's possible. They have a lot of hard work ahead of them, but he wants them to get better. He wants them to get better together.


	43. Day 8: Get the hell out, Fake David.

"Kerry and I have spent our lives able to go inside of each other," Cary explains to David. "That's how our system works, and we believe that's how your system works as well. There is a place inside of you and Divad and Dvd were able to go there."

"What's it like?" David asks, looking to Cary and then Kerry. If anyone should be the expert on being inside someone else, it's Kerry. "Being inside Cary, what was it like?"

"It was a lot of different things," Kerry says, considering. "Most of the time I was just in his body with him. That's when I was— A passenger. I watched and I talked to him and he talked to me. If I wanted to do something myself, I brought my body out of him."

"When I first went into Kerry," Cary says, "it was quite traumatic. I couldn't— I didn't know how to be inside her that way. So I pulled back. I went deeper, and I found myself in our childhood home."

Kerry nods. "That's where I went sometimes, if things were really scary. Just— Deep inside, where nothing could touch me. If I went deep enough I couldn't even hear Cary." She reaches for David's hand and takes it, and David gives her a comforting squeeze. It feels good to be able to help her the way she helps him.

"So that's where they are?" David asks, looking to Cary again. "Some— Imaginary version of my childhood home?"

"The inner world of a DID system could be almost anything," Cary explains. "But generally it's a place of safety. Identities in a system are traumatized and need a way to survive the same conditions that formed them. They need a refuge from the world. The inner world is the ultimate refuge. It's a form of dissociation so deep that the identities inside can cut themselves off completely. It appears that Divad and Dvd can't hear you or your thoughts or they surely would've come back by now."

David's not so sure about that. Dvd was furious, and Divad— David's not sure why Divad won't come back. Philly never left for long after their fights. If Divad is similar to anyone in David's life, it's Philly. He doesn't need to remember their past together to recognize that. But that doesn't give David any great confidence that he can get Divad to come back and build a healthy relationship. Or that he should. 

"Could I hear them there, if— If I had my powers?" David asks. "Could Oliver hear them?"

"I believe so," Cary says. "Oliver was able to hear Kerry. That's how he knew she was real even though she wouldn't come out in front of anyone but me. He listened to my thoughts and heard two people thinking instead of one."

"Listening to my head must keep him busy," David says, lightly even as he realizes how true it is. He only hears himself but it's no wonder Oliver keeps calling his thoughts loud when he has three people's worth of thoughts at once. What was it he said they were? A resounding burble.

"Do you have any idea what your inner world looks like?" Cary asks. "Farouk made you forget, but perhaps you've seen it since we got him out of you?"

David's not sure, but— "In the desert, after Syd— I was knocked out and I woke up in my childhood bedroom. That's where I first saw Divad and Dvd." He doesn't want anyone to fire another bullet at his head, but— "Do you have to knock me out? Sedate me?" Maybe it's like the memory walk where they needed to lower his defenses.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Cary says. "Your inner world is a part of you. All you have to do is— Dissociate."

David shifts, tightens his hold on Kerry's hand. "Dissociating isn't good for me. It makes me vulnerable." Dissociating himself into some altered mental state— It sounds too much like going away, and he doesn't want to go away.

"It does," Cary admits. "But it's a powerful survival tool. It's how your system works. Dissociation will always be a part of your life because you are always dissociating as Divad and Dvd. I dissociate sometimes and so does Kerry. Not as drastically as you, but— That's how we learned to be when we learned to be people. Denying that means denying who we are. That's never healthy. What's healthy is accepting ourselves. That helps us to figure out what we need to thrive."

David tries to process that. Self-acceptance and being healthy and thriving— That all sounds impossibly out of reach. And now he has to accept his dissociation, too, just when he learned that he needs to avoid it. It's all more than he can deal with. He needs to focus on finding his inner world, so he can focus on helping Divad and Dvd.

"How about instead of dissociating, you meditate?" Ptonomy suggests. "Many main members say that the best way to reach their inner world is through meditation. How about we give that a try?"

David relaxes and nods. He can handle meditation. That's always helped him feel better anyway. He shifts into a lotus position and makes himself comfortable. "Okay. Now what?"

"Think of your childhood bedroom," Cary says. "Visualize it. What's a strong image that you can focus on?"

That's easy. "My lamp."

"Syd, can you bring over the lamp?" Ptonomy asks.

Syd brings it over and puts it on the coffee table, and they plug it in. The motor creaks to life, casting stars from its blue shade. David watches it turn. He already feels calmer, safer, more relaxed. 

"Keep focusing on the lamp," Ptonomy soothes. "Think of how it makes you feel. Think of how safe you felt watching it in your bedroom. Let your memories of it guide you and pull you deeper."

David lets his eyes close and listens to the lamp turning. 

"Very good," Ptonomy says, his voice soft and lulling. "Now think about Divad and Dvd. Reach out to them. Feel where they are. See them in your bedroom. See them with the lamp."

Divad and Dvd. They're inside him. They're in his bedroom. They're with the lamp. He remembers them in the inner world, Dvd sitting in the rocking chair, Divad standing against the wall. He didn't know what was happening or who they were but he accepted all of it, he let them help him. He has to accept them so he can help them. He has to reach them.

He feels almost like he's falling asleep, like he's drifting away from his body. But the sound of the lamp carries him along. It's like astral projection, but inside his own mind. He should have thought of that sooner.

He opens his eyes. He's sitting on his childhood bed.

Dvd is sitting in the rocking chair and staring at him in complete surprise. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"David?" Divad asks, turning around. He's sitting at David's childhood desk. "You shouldn't be here."

"Get the hell out, _Fake David_ ," Dvd says, angrily. 

And then David is out. He opens his eyes and sees the lamp.

"David?" Cary asks, concerned.

"They kicked me out," David says, shocked. "Dvd— He called me Fake David."

"That can't be good," Cary says, worried. 

Dvd's always been so insistent that David is the same person as Past David. Does this mean he changed his mind? Did he find some memory that proved David isn't Past David, the opposite of the memory that was supposed to prove they're the same?

That should make him panic, but it just makes him angry.

"I'm going back," David says, and closes his eyes. It's just like astral projecting and he knows how to do that. He opens his eyes and he's back on the bed.

"Dvd—" he starts, but Dvd is already standing and glaring and—

David opens his eyes and he's back on the sofa. "He did it again," he says, exasperated. 

Cary is at a loss. "I've never dealt with anything like this," he admits.

"Dvd is strong," Ptonomy says. "But you're strong, too. You have just as much right to be there as he does. Don't let him push you out. Make yourself stay."

David could think about the irony of having to work hard to stay in a deep dissociative trance, but he's too annoyed for irony. It's his bedroom and his inner world and no one's kicking him out of it.

He closes his eyes and projects himself back again, and this time he's barely inside before he feels a force pushing him back. He pushes against it, determined to make it through. Dvd is strong, but David's strong, too. He has to get through to them because he can't fix their relationship if he can't talk to them, and he can't talk to them if he can't get through. 

And then suddenly the pressure stops and David is back on the bed. Dvd is grappling with Divad, trying to get free of him. David hurries off the bed and over to them. "Please stop," David begs them, trying to figure out how to get between them. He grabs Dvd's arm and Dvd elbows him hard in the chest. David staggers back, gasping.

"Now look what you did!" Divad hisses. 

"It wasn't my fault!" Dvd protests, but his anger subsides into grumpiness. "He's not David anyway, stop fretting over him. It's a waste of our time."

David sits down on the bed, holding his sore chest. It's the same spot where Cary put his hand when he said loving things to help David through his shame attack. If it bruises here, will it bruise on his actual body? Probably not.

David might be holding his hand over his heart, but he's not feeling ashamed and he's definitely not feeling very loving. "I'm here to get you back," he says to them, angrily. He winces and rubs his chest. It really feels like it's going to bruise.

"Not interested," Dvd says. He sits back down in the rocking chair and crosses his arms defiantly.

"David, you shouldn't be here," Divad says, standing over him. "You should be with your friends. How did you even get here?"

"My friends helped me," David says, pointedly. "And I thought you said they were _our_ friends."

"He was lying," Dvd says, with a cold smirk. "We were both lying. They're not our friends, they'll never be our friends, and we don't want them anyway."

"You're not helping," Divad says, exasperated. 

"Pretending isn't going to bring David back," Dvd says back. "He's dead. It's over. And I'm done fooling myself that this _thing_ is anything like him. Take that delusion and cram it up your ass."

David suddenly understands why Ptonomy insisted on all that extra love therapy before allowing him to go after Divad and Dvd. If he'd just gone here directly, he'd be a wreck already. Dvd's words hurt worse than his chest, but David has his foundation and his mantra and his heart is full of his friends' love. These are his brothers and he's not going to give up on them.

"Oh, _now_ we're your brothers?" Dvd sneers, furious. "You will never be my brother. My brother was David. You're not David and you never will be."

"Stop that," Divad scolds. 

"You're still pretending," Dvd says back. "Give up. You know I'm right, I'm always right. You just shove the truth down so you can pretend you're right. You shove everything down and it's pathetic. It's bullshit. You've never been honest with David a single day in our life."

"I thought he wasn't David," Divad points out.

"Fuck you," Dvd snarls. "You've never been honest with anyone. I'm always honest. I tell people exactly how I feel and if they don't like it, that's their problem."

"It sure is," Divad drawls. " _You're_ everyone's problem. And just because I don't see the world in black and white, that doesn't make me a liar. David's different, of course he's different, we're all different than we were. But it's a delusion that he's someone else and somehow I'm the only one who can see that."

"Um," David says. "I— Might be me?" He's not sure, he still doesn't have any proof, but— He feels more real and more like a person than he did before. It’s hard not to feel real when he feels so much love. 

Divad smiles. "David, that's great! Your friends did that?"

"Yeah," David says, and thinks about Cary and Kerry's loving words, about Ptonomy's kindness and his determination. "They're— They've really helped me. I couldn't see it until now, I was—" He couldn't see past the pain, past the delusion. Everything they tried to give him, all the nutritious ideas Kerry said he needs, the delusion ate them so he couldn't. That's what parasites do, they starve the host so the host will be weak and helpless.

Divad sits down beside him. "That's why you can't be here. That's why you need to stay with your friends."

"You need them, too," David insists. "Both of you need them. You need help, just like I do. You're sick."

"Wow," Dvd says, rocking back in his chair. "They really did a number on you." He looks to Divad. "I told you they'd mess him up."

"What do you care, you don't even think he's David," Divad points out. "David, we don't need help. We're the ones who help you. We protect you and we know what's best for you."

"No," David insists. "You were tortured, too. You're traumatized, just like me. You have to come back so Ptonomy can help you, so all our friends can help you the way they've helped me."

Dvd rolls his eyes. "Oh please."

Divad looks less certain. "If Dvd thinks something's the wrong idea, that usually means it's the right one."

"You agreed that staying here was the right thing to do," Dvd challenges.

"Not for the same reason."

"Forget it," Dvd says. "I'm not going back there so they can pick our brains. Group therapy for David was one thing. But that's not David and no one touches this." He jabs at his head with a finger.

"Why did you want to stay?" David asks Divad. Dvd's angry, he understands that. Dvd has good reason to be angry. But that doesn't explain why Divad didn't want to come back.

Divad doesn't answer. 

"See?" Dvd says. "That's what I've had to deal with. The moment things get real he just shuts down. Oh, he'll come up with a good story, and it will just sound so logical and reasonable. It's probably even true. But it's just the kind of half-truth bullshit the shit beetle uses."

"You take that back," Divad riles.

"Not a chance," Dvd says, smugly. "I don't care if that thing isn't David. At least someone else can finally see the real you. I don't have any brothers. I'm the only real one left. He's a delusion and you're a shit bee—"

Dvd doesn't get to finish because Divad stands up and socks him across the jaw. David gapes as they start fighting again, really fighting. If he can't stop them, they're going to kill each other. His mind is— It's tearing itself apart right in front of him. He doesn't know what to do. He could go back to his friends and ask for advice, but they can't do anything. They can't trap Divad and Dvd and gas them and put crowns on their heads until they agree to cooperate. They're literally just pieces of David's mind.

There's only one option. He has to make it so they can't hide. He has to force them to be outside, like Kerry was forced to be outside of Cary. That helped her, it has to help them. That means— David has to kick them out of himself and keep them out. He doesn't know if he's strong enough to do that, but he has to try.

All of this, it's all in his mind, _his_ mind. And in his mind, he decides what's real and what's not. Just like the white room. This is just another white room, and if he can make a white room, he can unmake one. If he can bring his brothers into a white room, he can take them out of one and keep them out. They're all identities but he's the main identity. He's the one whose name is the same as the name attached to his body. He created them to protect himself. It's time he returned the favor.

He stands up and raises his hands and the room starts to shake, like the rooms shook in the memory walks that went wrong. David steps on something hard and looks down to see his rocket lamp is shattered on the floor, ceramic fragments everywhere. They broke his lamp?

Okay, now he's pissed.

The room is really shaking now and books are falling off the shelves. Divad and Dvd finally stop beating the crap out of each other long enough to look up and see what's going on. Their eyes widen with realization, but it's too late.

And then David is back on the sofa between Kerry and Cary. The inner world is gone. Dvd and Divad are both sitting in the beanbags, wounded and scruffed from their fight and staring at David in shock. David imagines himself as a fortress, like Division 3's compounds, with thick steel and concrete walls, impenetrable and guarded.

"You're here and you're going to get help," he tells them both, to the surprise of everyone else. "You're going to talk to Ptonomy and you're going to get better. We're all going to get better. Is that clear?"

Dvd struggles out of the beanbag chair and stands up. "Fuck you, _Fake David_." He storms off but he can't leave the lab, because Dvd can only go as far as David's senses allow him to go. David can't actually astrally project so Dvd can't leave the room. Dvd kicks the wall in frustration and sits in the farthest chair so he faces away from everyone and sulks, furious.

"Fine," Divad says, coldly. "I'll talk to Ptonomy and he'll see that I don't need anything, except maybe to not have to listen to either of you for the rest of my life."

David prays for strength. He has no doubt he's going to need it. 

"Ptonomy," he says, turning to look at him. "I have two new patients for you. They're invisible and you can't hear them and they both hate me and I can't let them into my body. Is that going to be a problem?"

Ptonomy visibly considers this. "Not a problem. Though it’ll be easier to help them once Oliver gets back."

"Oh, thank god," David says, and slumps back against the sofa. He hopes Oliver gets back really soon.


	44. Day 8: They're all him and they're all infected.

David's body is a fortress. His mind is the only one allowed inside it, his mind and his alone. Nothing can enter him and nothing can pull him out. His mind and his body are one. They are unified and inseparable.

There's still an arm sticking out of his chest. The hand's middle finger is raised at him.

"Will you please stop doing that?" David pleads, strained. It’s very hard to concentrate when he has a rude arm sticking out of his chest.

"It's my body, too," Dvd insists. "I'll put whatever I want in it and you can't stop me."

"Gross," Divad snickers. 

Dvd continues to move parts of himself through David. A leg, an arm, his head. It's incredibly disturbing and obnoxious, which is the point. That's why David is meditating, or trying to meditate, so he can ignore all of this nonsense and keep his brothers here so they can get the help they need. 

At least he still has his rocket lamp. They can't break this one because they can't touch it.

"Oh, I’ll break it," Dvd promises, his head sticking out of David's shoulder. "As soon as I'm back in _my_ body, I'm throwing this one against the wall, too. And then I'll stomp on all the pieces so no one can ever put it back together, ever."

David gives up trying to meditate. He stands up from the sofa and walks away, not that it will make any difference. His brothers go wherever he goes. Trapping them here means he’s trapped with them, too. And now that he’s done with his sulk, Dvd is taking the opportunity to remind David of that. Constantly. It’s torture. 

"Torture is listening to your fake, suicidal thoughts sixteen hours a day," Dvd snarls. "Torture is listening to you tell us over and over that we’re fake, that we’re hallucinations. Well fuck you, Fake David. You’re the fake one and I’m gonna torture you until you actually do kill yourself because apparently that’s the only way I can stop listening to you."

Divad is less entertained by that. "I’m mad at him too, but don’t you think that’s a bit much?"

"If you don’t want to hear my thoughts, then don’t," David says, tersely. 

"You think we never tried?" Divad says. "This is how we work."

"We had our bedroom," Dvd says. "When it was too much, that’s where we could go. We could lock the door and keep everything out. But Fake David couldn’t stand that. Fake David had to destroy the only home we’ve ever known."

"It was my bedroom," David defends. "It was just a white room."

"It was our home," Dvd shouts, furious. "You want us here so badly? You got us. And I’m going to dedicate every second I’m stuck here to driving you out out of what’s left of your fake mind."

"That’s enough," Divad says, getting between them. "David isn’t fake. Stop punishing him!"

"I haven’t even started yet," Dvd says, with a maniacal grin. "You got to yell at David for years. Now it’s my turn. Good luck keeping Fake David safe from me. I was always stronger than you and no one gets in my way."

David sits down at the table and puts his face in his hands. This is— It seemed like a good idea at the time, forcing his brothers to accept treatment just like he was forced to. They were killing each other, he didn’t know what else to do. 

"I wasn’t gonna kill Divad," Dvd says, leaning over him. "But I’m absolutely gonna kill you. I won’t even have to touch you. I’ll just do what Divad always did. You’re a piece of shit, _Fake David_. You ruin everything. You’re hurting our parents, you’re hurting Amy. You’re a mess and you’re destroying our life. Do everyone a favor and hang yourself, _Fake David_."

"Hey!" Divad shouts, furious himself now. "That’s not what I said."

"That’s what you meant," Dvd shouts back. "That’s how David felt and you knew it, but that didn’t stop you. You wanted him to kill us. Well I’m finally on your side. Let’s do it. Let’s kill this delusion once and for all."

Divad lunges at Dvd, but David doesn’t try to break up this fight. He can’t touch them, not without leaving his body, and if he does that he won’t be able to stop them from going back inside him and never coming out again. Even if the inner world is gone, he can’t stop them from making another one. He only got them out before because he caught them by surprise. He can’t— This was all such a mistake. He’s so stupid, why did he think he could help them? 

"Hey," Ptonomy says, sitting next to him. "What just happened? You said you’d be our relay until Oliver gets back."

"Nothing worth repeating," David says, even though his throat is tight and he’s on the verge of tears. "Dvd wants me to kill myself. Now they’re fighting again." He wipes at his eyes. "I shouldn’t have— I hurt them again. I ruined things again. I’m sorry, I know— I know I have to be strong, but—"

He tries to do the compassion exercise, to give himself love. He tries but he can’t. It feels like lies and it makes him feel worse for even trying. He thought he was doing the right thing and he ruined everything again. God, why doesn’t he ever learn? 

He deserves to be eaten alive by his delusion parasite. Maybe if it eats what little is left of him, his body will be an empty shell and Divad and Dvd can share it. They’ll finally be free of him that way. 

"Whatever he said, I know Dvd doesn’t mean it," Ptonomy soothes. "He has a short temper and you set it off. He’ll cool down, he just needs time."

"No," David says. "This was a mistake, I can’t— I’m not strong enough to help them."

"That’s because you’re trying to do this on your own."

"You can’t talk to them without Oliver."

"We can all talk to them," Ptonomy says. "They don’t have to listen but we can talk. You just have to be our relay and tell us what they’re saying. Let us help you so you can help them."

"Right now they’re not saying anything," David says, glancing over at his brothers. "They’re just tearing each other to pieces again." Because of him, he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t need to. All of this is his fault on every level. He made them, he trapped them with him, his thoughts tortured them just like the monster did, and now he’s forced them out of the only refuge they had so he can torture them with his thoughts again. And he can’t even stop himself from thinking all that despite knowing it hurts them to hear it. Forget his apology loop, this is— This is a torture loop. Farouk must be absolutely delighted. He turned David into a— A perpetual torture machine. 

It won’t take long for Dvd to make him want to kill himself. It’s not like David ever really stopped wanting to, he just hasn’t been able to do anything about it. Dvd doesn’t care if all of David’s friends are tortured for decades. Dvd probably doesn’t even care if killing David kills his brothers, too. Suicide-by-proxy would probably be a relief. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says, mouth set in a firm line. "Point to where they are."

David looks and points. They’re grappling with each other and their legs are going through the cot supports. 

Ptonomy stands up and walks over to the cots. "Divad! Dvd! You’re supposed to protect David. Instead you’re making him worse. He’s trying to help you and this is how you treat him?"

"Fuck off, robot," Dvd snarls, catching Divad in a chokehold. "I’m not letting you crawl into my head."

Ptonomy looks to David. 

"Dvd said he doesn’t want to talk," David says. 

"You’re paraphrasing," Ptonomy says. "I need to hear his exact words."

David winces and complies. "Sorry," he finishes. 

"You’re just their relay, like Oliver has been. We know it’s not you. Just keep relaying and tell us what they’re doing and where they are." Ptonomy turns back to Dvd and Divad. "Right now your head is the last thing I care about," he says, coldly. "What you’re doing to David is cruel. He hurt you by mistake. You’re doing it on purpose. David said you called Divad a shit beetle. Who’s the shit beetle now?"

David gapes in awe. He hasn’t heard Ptonomy this furious since— Since the Summerland memory work. And he’s angrier now.

"You take that back!" Dvd snarls. He lets go of Divad and gets up into Ptonomy’s face, even though Ptonomy can’t see him. 

"You’re pathetic," Ptonomy spits. "You’re a bully and you’re weak, just like the monster. You want to make David break down? He’s already broken. We just managed to make some real progress while you were gone, and the moment you get back you’re hard at work taking all of that away from him. Farouk is a sadistic psychopath. What’s your excuse?"

Dvd is actually speechless for a moment. Then he riles. "I’m not doing anything to him that he hasn’t done to us."

David relays that, despite how horrified that makes him feel. If that’s really the truth—

"You’re saying you want to kill yourselves?" Ptonomy asks, tone softer but still firm. 

"Of course we do," Divad says, standing up and straightening his rumpled clothes. "But we have to stay to keep David safe or alive or— We have to try."

"Why didn’t you tell me?" David asks them, after relaying their words. 

"You used to know," Divad says. "And since we got back— We couldn’t keep you safe, we couldn’t protect you. The least we could do is not make you worse, and we can’t do that either."

David forces himself to relay before replying. "Everything makes me worse. All I am is worse." God, he really has been doing to them what Dvd was doing to him. "I’m so, _so_ sorry, I—" He swallows. "I shouldn’t have made you come back. If you want to go back, I’ll— I’ll make a new bedroom, a whole house, anything. All of this is— It’s my mess, not yours. Please, you should— Some part of me should be safe."

David can’t say anymore. He sobs and turns away, trying not to cry and failing, as usual. He can't kill himself; he has to stay alive so they can live. He should do that for them. If they stay in the inner world, it won’t matter what happens to him, they’ll still be safe. Farouk needs him alive so David won’t be allowed to die no matter what he does to the world. Farouk must have hated them having a refuge. He would have destroyed it if he could. He couldn’t, just like he couldn’t get rid of Divad and Dvd, but David could. David doesn’t want them to leave, but— He won’t force them to stay. They don't deserve any more suffering.

"Neither do you," Divad says. He sits down next to David. "Maybe Dvd’s given up on you but I haven’t. I didn’t want to come back because— Because your friends have been able to do everything I couldn’t. I thought I could save you because I knew what was best for you and— That was my delusion. You can’t— You can’t say you’ll stay alive and give up on yourself at the same time."

"I can do a lot of impossible things," David says, tightly. "It doesn’t matter what I want. You know that. It’s not up to me. You have a choice. You should take it while you still can. All of this— It’s not going to last. Nothing good ever lasts. Please let me save you."

Divad doesn’t reply, and David thinks that’s that. He lets down all his mental guards so they can go back inside him. The inner world is still gone but it should be easy to make a new one for them. It’s like the mainframe. Amy and Ptonomy and Lenny are safe in the mainframe. Divad and Dvd will be safe in the inner world. He still has to worry about— About Kerry and Cary and Syd, but— There must be a way to save them, too. And Clark and his family. If Benny is still alive somewhere, and Philly— He can’t think of anyone else, but— If there’s anyone left that he ever cared about, anyone Farouk would hurt just to hurt him, he’ll do everything he can to save them. He can’t save himself but he can try to save them.

"That’s the kind of stupid, self-sacrificing crap David thought all the time," Dvd grumbles, sitting down at the table. "It never worked then. I don’t know why you think it’ll work now."

"Does that mean he’s not a delusion?" Divad asks.

Dvd makes a noncommittal noise. "If he is a copy of David, he’s a pretty good copy. I’m not saying I won’t take him up on that offer. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to stick around for a while. See if we can find that memory."

"Was I— Did I— Try to save everyone?" David asks. He doesn’t know. He can’t remember ever doing anything good for anyone. He can't remember anything.

"You tried to save us," Divad says. "Did you forget that’s how you made us?"

David wipes his eyes. "If that was me saving you, I did a terrible job."

"Now you know how we feel," Divad says. "But you tried. You always tried to protect us even though we’re supposed to protect you. And you did, in your way. You made our bedroom for us. You— You took a lot of pain for us. Too much."

"Not enough, if you—" David swallows. "If you want to die, too."

"It was too much for all of us," Divad admits. "Maybe— We do need to talk to Ptonomy. Losing you was— I don’t want to tell you how bad it was. You don’t need to know."

"You know everything about me," David counters. "It’s not fair if— If you don’t share back. It’s— Unbalanced."

"It’s not supposed to be balanced," Dvd says. "We know, you don’t. That’s how we work."

"How’s that fair to you?" David asks. "How’s it fair to me? Can we— Not work that way anymore?"

"We tried," Divad says. "We can’t stop hearing your thoughts. That’s why we went to the inner world. If things were too much for us, we could leave. But you couldn’t. The monster wouldn’t let you. That’s why you would go away instead. That was your escape: catatonic oblivion. At least Dvd and I had each other in our bedroom. You didn’t even have yourself."

No wonder they were so surprised when David showed up in their bedroom. The only reason he was in it before was because they brought him there to help him, once they finally could. And he destroyed it before he even understood it, before he knew it was a thing he could have. Again. 

"I think—" Divad continues. "I think that’s what gave him the idea. He took us away from you and then he took you away from yourself."

"In college?" David asks. "Please, tell me what happened."

"No," Divad says. "You’re not ready. We’re not making you worse."

"It doesn’t matter," David insists. 

"It does," Divad says. "Your friends are right. We have to go slow or we’ll hurt you. We hurt you enough today already."

"It doesn’t matter," David says again. It doesn’t matter if he suffers. He’s supposed to suffer. Maybe that’s the delusion thinking for him, but it feels so true that either it’s true for both himself and the parasite, or there’s nothing left of him and he is the parasite. 

"What’s this parasite?" Dvd asks, suspiciously. "The shit beetle’s gone. Gone from our body, anyway. He’s definitely gone."

"It’s more of a— Ptonomy, can you explain about the parasite?"

"Of course." Ptonomy sits down in an empty chair. He must know where Divad and Dvd are sitting just from watching David talk to them. David forgot to relay again. He hopes it wasn’t too confusing, only hearing one-third of the conversation. Everyone must be used to it by now. 

"David has something called developmental or complex trauma. That's why he hated himself even before he made the both of you. Young children in abusive environments, they accept the world around them. David's world was— Horrifically abusive. But accepting that world meant believing there was a reason for everything in it. That meant the terrible things were happening to him because they were meant to happen, because he deserved it. That's the delusion, the parasite that's grown inside him for decades. That's why he wants to kill himself. It's eating him alive. It's eating you, too."

"Excuse me?" Dvd says, and David relays. "We did _not_ deserve to be tortured."

"David was very young when he made you. None of you knew the world could be any other way. You believed what he believed, just like you believed King was real. And you are parts of David, the parts he tried to save. Dvd, you're the part of David that uses anger to protect himself. But you still accept that your abuse and the world are inseparable. Instead of blaming yourself like David does, you turn your anger on the world. And Divad— You're the part of David that suppresses his emotions to deny his pain. You turn to logic to protect you, because if you could only make the right decisions with a clear head, the bad things would stop happening. But you can’t control everything, and when bad things keep happening you lose control and your anger controls you."

David looks at his brothers and they look back. For once, they all feel the same way. David doesn't need to hear their thoughts to know that. He can see it on their faces. He can see it on his face.

They're three separate people, but— They're the same person. They're him. They're his anger at the world for hurting him and at himself for deserving to be hurt. They're the coping mechanisms he uses to survive. He can't control his emotions because Divad has all his control. He can’t stay angry because Dvd has all his anger. His shame matches Dvd's fury and his fantasizing matches Divad’s logic.

They're all him and they're all infected. The parasite is eating them all alive and it's been tearing them apart for so long. It's what tore him apart in the first place. The delusion that he deserves his suffering is why— It's why he dissociated so much he broke into pieces. Because he deserved to suffer but he needed to save himself, and that was the only way he could do both at once.

Or try to. He might have been able to help himself, but there was a monster in his head, making sure nothing could ever help him. Keeping him from the refuge of his inner world. Preventing anyone from believing him and creating the illusion of schizophrenia so anyone who tried to help him would only hurt him. And then the monster found a way to cut him off from the parts of himself he needed to survive and stole his memories and his self-knowledge so he couldn't defend himself at all, so he'd be completely helpless, weak and docile and trusting and drugged, turning David Haller into the perfect victim, the perfect feast laid out on the table to be consumed.

But the monster is gone. The delusion isn't, but the monster is out of his head. They got him out.

"Yeah," Dvd says, roughly. "They got him out. Your friends."

"Our friends," Divad says. "Tell Ptonomy— Tell him thank you for understanding us."

David relays for both of them, for himself. He tells Ptonomy everything he just realized. He doesn't just think it, he says it, and that makes it real.

"I could still be a copy," he continues, forcing himself to say it aloud. "Farouk could have— Deluded me into thinking I'm David. But— Even if I am, I'm still— I'm still David, because David is David Haller's— Shame. I'm David Haller's shame."

Anger saved Dvd and denial saved Divad. But David couldn't escape his pain so he accepted it, and it just kept coming and coming and—

"David, you are so much more than shame," Ptonomy tells him. "You're love. You're joy. You're grief. You're every emotion and feeling a person can have, because you are a person. Divad and Dvd are people too, not just parts of David Haller. You're all real and you all deserve to be more than the ways you've survived. You never deserved what happened to you. You never deserved to be victims. You don't have to be victims anymore, not if you let us help you. All of you, not just David. You can become survivors. You can learn how to thrive."

"How?" Divad asks, and David relays. "What do we do?"

"What I already showed David," Ptonomy says. "The only thing that will kill the delusion is love. It's compassion for yourselves and each other. It's the love you share and the love of the people around you. Love is how David felt strong enough to find you and try to help you. Love is how you two were able to fight so hard to protect him. All three of you had ways to escape what was happening to you. David could have gone away. Divad and Dvd could have stayed in the inner world. But you didn't abandon each other or anyone else. You love too much for that, no matter what the monster did to you and no matter how much he made you hurt yourselves and other people. David Haller's love survived. You are all David Haller's love."

David looks at his brothers again. Dvd's violent and hostile, Divad's controlling and critical, and David's— Passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed. 

But— Ptonomy showed him before. Cary and Kerry showed him. Being loved— It weakened the delusion, if only for a while. It's hard to believe that any part of David Haller deserves to be loved at all. But they love David Haller anyway. Amy's always loved them. Syd loves them. His friends love them. Even if they gave that love to David, they gave it to all the parts of David Haller. They didn't only love one part of him. Amy said— She said it didn't matter if he was two different Davids or three separate people. He was her Davey.

Dvd frowns. "She didn't know we were there."

David relays that, and Ptonomy says, "She knows you're here now. Amy, can you join us?"

The Vermillion sits down next to Ptonomy. "Hey Dvd," Amy says. "I was just telling David how much I wanted us to be able to sit down together as a family. You and Divad are my brothers. Even though I couldn't see you, you've always been my brothers and I have always loved you. Just like I've always loved David. I love all three of my baby brothers."

Dvd crosses his arms, but it looks more protective than defiant. "You're just saying that. You don't mean it. You're lying."

"I wish you could read my mind," Amy says, responding to David's relay. "I want you to know exactly how much I love you. But there's so many things stopping that. So you have to trust me, and I know it's really hard for you to trust anyone. I haven't been very good at trusting people either. When you're the one who protects, when you have to be the strong one all the time, it's really hard to let anyone help you. Especially if—" She turns to David. "Especially if you think that's the only way to protect the person you're helping."

"Amy?" David asks, worried. 

"I'm not okay, David," Amy admits. "I'm dead. I died, I— I was trapped and afraid and I thought I would be like that for the rest of my life. I'm still trapped and afraid. My husband is dead. My life is— Everything is gone except you. You're all I have left and I'm so afraid of losing you. I'm afraid I'll lose you because you won't tell me when you're being hurt because you don't want to see me cry. And that's— That's so selfish, David. It's so selfish of you to do that to both of us." She takes a shaky breath. She's crying. "I'm selfish, too. I thought I knew what was best for you and I was wrong. I didn't listen when you asked for help. I didn't know how to help you, and so— I stopped trying. Divad and Dvd never stopped trying. They did so much more for you than I ever could because they're closer to you than anyone will ever be. And I'm— I'm jealous of them. Even when Oliver lets me hear your thoughts, we're still so far apart. The three of you will always be together. Nothing can pull you apart. Nothing can kill the people you share your life with."

David reaches out his hand and the Vermillion takes it. Amy's right, there's so much between them. There's always been too much between them, too many walls and barriers and silences. 

"I'm sorry," David says, meaningfully. "I'm so sorry for everything."

"I know you are," Amy says, and it sounds like she's smiling through her tears. "But I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to talk to me. I want to be able to talk to you. I want Divad and Dvd to be part of our family the way they always should have been. You three are my family. I love all three of my brothers, and I hope— I hope all of my brothers can forgive me for hurting them. I hope we can all love each other."

David looks to Divad and Dvd, hoping they're ready to forgive Amy for Clockworks, too. But they're not. 

"They're not ready," David says for them, regretful. "But— I forgive you."

"David—" Amy starts.

"I know," David says. "I know I feel like I deserve to be hurt and that makes it easy to— To forgive. But I gave all my anger to Dvd and my denial to Divad so— I just have to accept. What happened. What I am. I can't keep— I'm trying to not punish myself because— It hasn't helped me. It makes me worse. I don't want to be worse. I love you and it was everyone's fault and— if I have to forgive everyone to have you back, then I forgive everyone. I forgive Doctor Kissinger and the staff and you and— And even myself. Or I'm trying. That's— That's all I have to do, right? I just have to keep trying to get better."

It's the hardest thing he's ever done, getting better. Not that he can remember to know the difference, but it's breathtakingly hard. He's trying to get better anyway. With everything he has, he's trying. And he knows— He knows that Divad and Dvd are trying, too. Because they're parts of him and they never give up, they're too stubborn. Amy said he was always stubborn. He was always the most impossible, difficult little brother in the world, no matter which part of him was looking out through his eyes.

"That's all you have to do," Ptonomy says, warmly. "That's all any of us can do. Divad and Dvd, I hope you'll stay with us and try, because you don't deserve to be in pain any more than David does. You've been alone for a long time but you're not alone anymore. You have David again. You have us. Together we will do everything we can to make sure that this time is different. This time the monster won't win. I know that must be difficult to believe. But you don't have to believe it if you let us believe it for you."

David looks to Divad and Dvd. They're both so resistant. They can't believe that this time is different. David barely believes it himself. But a tiny part of him does. A tiny part of a part of David Haller has hope again, so that means all of David Haller has a tiny bit of hope again.

"I'll try," Divad relents, but he doesn't look thrilled about it. "If only because Ptonomy figured out how to make you accept that you're actually David. If he could do that—" He shrugs. 

David relays that, then looks to Dvd. Dvd doesn't look back. His crossed arms look defiant again. "No," he says, firmly, and sets his jaw.

David looks to Ptonomy and tells him.

"Okay," Ptonomy accepts. "Divad, thank you. I truly believe we can help you. And Dvd, I hope you'll reconsider. But this has to be your choice, just like it was David's choice and Divad's choice."

"Do you want to go back to your bedroom?" David asks.

"No," Dvd says. "You destroyed it. If you make a new one, it won't be the same."

"Dvd," Divad says, concerned. 

"Leave me alone," Dvd says. "Just— Leave me alone." He stands up and walks over to the door to guard it. "You two do whatever you have to do. I'm the one who keeps us safe, so that's what I have to do."

David relays to Ptonomy, and Ptonomy nods. "Cary, can you put a chair by the door? Dvd needs to sit there."

"Of course," Cary says, and brings one over. David directs him to place it where Dvd is standing. Once Cary stands back, Dvd rolls his eyes but sits down in the chair. He doesn't say anything, but he does look a tiny bit less defiant. 

"You wish," Dvd mutters, hearing his thought.

"What now?" Divad asks, and David relays. 

Ptonomy looks at the clock. "Now we have dinner. Dvd, would you like to join us?"

"I don't need to eat," Dvd says.

"Neither do I. Neither does Amy or Divad. We'd still like your company."

Dvd pointedly doesn't respond.

"Kerry and I will go get our order," Cary says. He turns to Dvd. "You keep everyone safe while we're away, okay?"

Dvd gives him the finger. David tactfully declines to relay it to Cary.


	45. Day 8: They're all weapons, all these friends.

This whole therapy thing is a bad idea. Everything is a bad idea.

Dvd watches everyone sitting around the table together, eating and talking, and he knows it's all bullshit. They're all in denial, pretending that Farouk isn't peering into their minds, prying inside them for weapons he can use to hurt them and hurt David. The whole idea that any of them can help is such a joke, and when the punchline comes, it's going to be on him and Divad and David, like it always is. David can't remember, Divad doesn't want to, but Dvd always remembers. He knows a disaster when he sees one and everything is a disaster.

The world is totally going to end. Dvd has no doubt about that. None of them can stop it. Even dying wouldn't stop it, or Dvd would have done the merciful thing already and killed their body. Farouk wouldn't let David die while he was inside him, and yeah, Dvd's glad of that, because killing themselves would have ended the pain but death is bullshit, too.

Dying didn't save Lenny. It didn't save Amy or Ptonomy. It didn't even save Melanie, and the fact that she's breathing doesn't make her any less of a corpse. 

He wasn't really going to make David kill himself. He just wanted David to suffer the way they've suffered. He wanted David to share the pain they used to share. He wanted David to be David again, instead of this— Fake. Trick. Mocking illusion.

Dvd's such a liar. It's a lie that David is a different person and it's a lie that he'll ever be the same. Seeing him, hearing his thoughts— Even if David wasn't suicidal, even if David truly accepted them, it would still be torture because the David they knew is never coming back.

Dvd just— He needed to get away. He needed to make it stop. He needed to be somewhere else, somewhere safe, and now the one safe place he had is gone because Fake David destroyed it. And Dvd can't even be mad at him about it because Fake David tried to make it up to them just like Real David used to. He thinks the same thoughts as he always did. Because he is the same person, even though he'll never be the same.

Dvd could have said yes. David would have made a new bedroom for him. Dvd knows he would have made it and it would have been just like it was, and that David would have let Dvd go there and never come back. Because that's what David was always trying to get them to do: go into the bedroom and stay there until it was safe to come out again, until the latest horror was over. But the horror is never going to be over and they promised to never make him face it alone.

He won't leave David to face this horror alone either. He won't break his promise even if David doesn't even remember that they made it, even if they couldn't keep it for a decade. Maybe that makes Dvd the stupid one, maybe that's his delusion: that if he keeps remembering the way David used to be it will keep him alive. Maybe that's just the latest torture the shit beetle is putting him through. Memory has always been the monster's favorite weapon, and making David forget and Dvd remember has always been his favorite way to use it.

But like most of the monster's tortures, Dvd's doing it to himself. He's staying even though it's agony because it would hurt even more to leave. He's sitting here, pretending to guard the door when doors don't matter to the monster. Only David matters. So he's guarding David and he's considering Farouk's armory.

They're all weapons, all these friends. Everyone who gets close to David is a weapon whether they want to be or not. Even Dvd is a weapon. Divad is definitely a weapon, but Dvd's been keeping a close eye on him for a long time. He knows exactly how Divad can hurt David and he knows how he'll hurt him again. He's a known quantity.

It's everyone else that needs evaluating. 

Sometimes Dvd thinks Divad was right, yelling at David to give up wanting things and loving people. All these people, all these relationships, all these complicated emotions. They think they're helping but David's never been more vulnerable because every single one of them is a knife pointed at David's heart, waiting to be shoved deep and twisted.

Syd's the obvious place to start. She's been quiet since she fucked things up, but it's only a matter of time before she fucks things up again. She should keep reading her stupid book instead of staring at David with all that quiet regret. Quiet regret never did anything for anyone. He shouldn't have let Divad talk him out of making her leave, but— Her leaving would bring David to his knees, and then Farouk could really get his claws in deep before he sent her back to hurt David even more.

Kerry's watching Syd, too. Kerry has a mean right hook and sharp feet and not a single clue how dangerous their situation is, but she knows a threat when she sees one. She could be useful if Syd needs to be taken out. But she's a weapon, too, and even if she punched him and kicked him, Dvd doesn't want her to suffer, but more than that he doesn't want her pain to happen to David.

Ptonomy is a lot easier to read now that he has a real face. He doesn't trust Syd either. He hides his feelings — probably because he thinks that will help him outwit the shit beetle — but he's just kidding himself if he thinks he can outwit an omniscient monster. It doesn't matter that no one can read Ptonomy's mind. The shit beetle can read everyone else's mind and that's more than enough. What happened in the desert is proof that having a secret plan doesn't mean shit.

Ptonomy does play his cards close to his chest, Dvd will give him that. He keeps everyone busy with all this therapy and helping. He keeps them distracted. So Ptonomy is definitely up to something in that mainframe. The shit beetle must know it, too. So Ptonomy better watch his back because the moment he's a real threat, he's gone. The fact that he's still here is proof that he's doing exactly what the monster wants, even if he is dead. Death doesn't mean shit. The monster doesn't need Ptonomy to have a body to torture him forever.

Dvd doesn't see Cary as much of a threat. The shit beetle barely bothered with him before now, but he was just the lab guy to David, poking and prodding him like every other lab guy in the history of lab guys. Making Cary and Kerry swap was the kind of evil the monster loves: easy to make happen and absolutely agonizing for everyone else to live with. The shit beetle is so fucking lazy, always making everyone else do his dirty work for him. He thinks he's clever but he's lazy, parasite-lazy, living off everyone else's hard work.

Whatever. Fuck the shit beetle, _fuck him_.

Where was he? Oh yeah, Amy.

Fuck Amy, too.

Don't get him wrong, he's glad David made up with her. Just like he's glad that David's making up with Syd. Whatever stops David from torturing himself with grief and regret is fine by Dvd. But none of that has shit to do with Dvd. Amy didn't know he existed until now and that was fine. It was better that way. Dvd's job is to keep David alive, and Syd was wrong, all these extra people only make his job harder. It was easier when they only had one or two of them to deal with at a time. Their family was always there like background radiation, eating away at David with their sadness. But all three of them knew the safest thing was to avoid getting close to anyone but themselves. David forgot that, so there was Benny and there was Philly. There was Lenny and there was Syd. Now everyone who's left is together at once, and there's new people. Kerry and Cary. Ptonomy. Oliver and Melanie.

Melanie's a corpse, but death doesn't mean shit. The shit beetle has her soul tucked away somewhere, just like he had Amy's soul tucked away. He'll bring her back when he has a use for her. He'll probably use her against Oliver. Oliver's barely here as it is. He doesn't seem like much of a threat but that's the kind of threat that's the most dangerous of all. Oliver's a powerful telepath but his mind is weak. The shit beetle's already lived in his head and knows it from the inside. Not that the monster needs Oliver's powers now; he's got his own body back and nothing can touch him. But he's still a lazy parasite who won't do anything himself if he can make someone else do it, so Dvd's keeping an eye on Oliver, too. Dvd wouldn't mind if Oliver never came back. Dvd needs to think if he's going to figure out how to keep David safe, and it's hard to do that when he has to guard his thoughts from the mainframe.

Lenny's still tucked away in the mainframe, staying out of the way, but she's absolutely going to be a problem. She's been a hell of a weapon for a long time, and there's no way the monster is giving her up now. 

And then there's this place. Division 3. They're playing with them again, sending Clark to say nice things to David to lower their defenses. Dvd's not falling for it. He fell for it with Syd but he's never falling for it again, especially not with these murderous psychos. When people say nice things he knows they're doing it because they want something from David. They want to use him and hurt him. They're all parasites, all of them, too lazy to do their own goddamn dirty work so they make David do it for them.

David won't say no. He hasn't been able to say no since college, not to anyone he trusts. He just rolls right over no matter what they tell him to do. It drove Divad absolutely insane having to watch that. It drove them both insane having to listen to David's twisted rationalizations, his thoughts tying themselves into vicious knots as he desperately tried to reconcile his blind faith in everyone around him and the terrible things they told him to do. They thought they were asking but they were telling because the monster made sure David trusted everyone but himself.

David even trusted Benny. David can't remember Benny anymore. If he did, he wouldn't want to save him from the monster. Benny was an absolute piece of shit who took advantage of David at every opportunity. He stole David's meds and his money and anything of his that looked worth trading for drugs. Philly did her best to stop it and so did Amy, but they blamed David, thinking it was the drugs that made him stupid. It was the shit beetle that made him stupid. The drugs were just another way he made David hurt himself.

If Dvd could go back in time, he would go back to the first time David saw King and he would launch the dog monster right into the sun. Those stupid memories— Dvd's so furious about the memories it makes him want to end the world himself. They didn't know exactly what the monster did to David. They knew he forgot a lot, almost everything. Forgetting Dvd and Divad and his powers meant he had to forget almost everything. But they can't see David's memories like they can hear his thoughts. They don't know what the monster left behind unless David thinks about it. David's thought about his memories a lot, but— In those memory walks, the memories were wrong. They were changed or pieces were missing. But they'd have to be, because David's real memories were full of his powers and his brothers, and Farouk took those away.

The monster didn't like David looking too closely at his memories. He really didn't like anyone else poking around in David's head. Dvd saved them by getting them out but they kept going back in. Idiots. They should know when they're being saved from a monster. They should be grateful and then they should get the hell away before it's too late for them like it's too late for every single person in this room. In this building. On this planet.

That's one of the reasons why, even if the rest of this therapy stuff is pointless, Dvd is willing to help with the memory work. Not just so he can find something that will help David remember them, but because if the shit beetle didn't want them poking around, poking around is exactly what they need to do as much of as possible. Which is why it's frustrating on top of frustrating that David swore off remembering. Dvd doesn't want David to remember all that pain, but— The truth is that David needs to remember. David _needs_ to remember if he wants that tiny bit of hope he has to actually mean something, instead of meaning shit.

The shit beetle is listening, but all he can do is listen. As much of a disaster as their system has become, it's _theirs_ again. For the first time, really. The shit beetle was always getting in the way even before he got in the way. He was always trying to pull them apart even though he knew he could never truly pull them apart. He'll never stop trying, Dvd's absolutely sure of that. Which is why Dvd's sticking around even if sticking around is torture. The worst torture would be if he let the shit beetle win. 

David thought he could guard himself from Divad and Dvd. He still doesn't understand how they work or he'd know that Dvd is the one who guards him from everyone else. He'd know that Dvd is the one making sure nothing gets in. Even with the crown, he's making sure of that. Their powers are still here. David doesn't realize that because he barely understands their powers anyway. If he did, he'd know he couldn't make the white room without their powers. He'd know he couldn't destroy their bedroom without their powers. He'd know that Divad couldn't emotionally regulate him without their powers. He'd know that's how Divad and Dvd are visible to David. They're not hallucinations and they never were. 

But Dvd isn't going to tell David that their powers still work. If David figures that out, he'll do something stupid again, like he stupidly destroyed their bedroom. He'll do something stupid like killing their system. These friends of his don't understand their powers either if they think the crown is doing anything to keep David from killing their body. All the crown does is stop them from using their powers outside of their body. That's why they can't read minds or make the world do what they want it to do. They're trapped inside their head, but that doesn't mean they're trapped, except that the whole world is a trap.

The crown can't keep David from stopping their heart with a thought. But he thinks it can, which is good enough for Dvd.

Dvd can't stop the shit beetle from prying into their thoughts. It would almost be worth getting the crown off and risking David doing something stupid just to keep the monster from listening in. But the monster doesn't need to hear their thoughts to know what they're thinking. Let the shit beetle know exactly how much they all loathe him. Let him know they're all plotting against him. He knows it anyway. He can listen all he wants but he can't get inside. He can't touch a single one of David's memories anymore. He can't touch Divad or Dvd. They're not safe but he can't touch them. He'll find some way to hurt David, and that will make David hurt them. That's how this works, that's how the shit beetle operates.

The monster made David forget, but Dvd remembers everything. And even if he doesn't, he remembers enough. He's not letting down his guard for a moment. He wishes he could. He'd let David make him a new bedroom and he'd go there and sleep for a month. He'd have David make him a whole house and a garden and Dvd would spend all his time there alone, growing vegetables. Dvd didn't care if they went to live on a farm or not, but all of them loved the garden. They loved being with their mother in her garden.

They didn't know David forgot about their mother. They knew David forgot a lot of things but it wasn't like they could ask. David couldn't hear them for years. They got expelled and their life fell apart and David hung them and they ended up sedated in a mental hospital. The doctors barely asked David about their mother, even though her death devastated them. That was fine, Dvd didn't want David to talk about her to them anyway. Kissinger was a creep. Dvd was glad when he saw that Division 3 had locked him up. Good riddance.

Ptonomy is a lot better than Kissinger, Dvd will give him that, too. David really was the burning, toxic disaster he thought he was when Ptonomy started on him, and now David is— At least no longer actively on fire. Still a toxic disaster, but that's nothing new. His whole explanation of their system was— Shockingly accurate. Dvd knew all of that already but hearing it all summed up like that from someone who isn't even part of their system was—

No one's ever known them like that, no one. Not their parents or Amy, and certainly none of the idiot doctors who did nothing but torture David and make him worse. But Ptonomy figured them out. More than that, he figure out things about them that they didn't know. 

Dvd's still not sure what he thinks about this whole delusion parasite. It's not a literal parasite, not like the monster was, but— It helps David to think of it that way, as a living thing they have to fight. It's a vivid image, that's for sure, and one Dvd's not going to forget anytime soon. Dvd's creeped out just thinking about it. He doesn't buy the rest of it. They want to die because their life is fucking miserable, what other reason do they need? Same with the rest of it. The world is a shitty place full of victims and monsters. That's the truth. David's the delusional one, trusting people he shouldn't trust because the relationship he remembers more than anything else is the one he had with a dog that wasn't even real. That's what's fucked up. If David was like he used to be, he'd know not to go trusting people left and right. He'd know that the only people he needed were the other parts of him. That's how they worked, but David forgot.

Dvd was really too mad to pay attention to David's thoughts when David barged his way into their bedroom, but— When they left, David was a mess. He'd barely managed to not go away, he swore off remembering, he moped his way through the morning, and the only thing that cheered him up at all was reading one of those tedious magazines. Syd's fuckup should have sent him into another spiral and it probably did. But when David showed up— He came to find them and bring them back. He figured out how to get to their bedroom on his own. He blew the damn thing up, which was shocking on a dozen levels, but— The David they left that morning couldn't have done any of that. He was barely functional the way he's been barely functional for days.

And more than that, David didn't reject Ptonomy's explanation. He didn't try to ignore it or forget it. He's still thinking about it now, turning it over in his mind, trying to absorb and understand it. David is— He's actually trying to accept that he's an identity in their system. That's the one thing about all of this that made Dvd need to sit down on his own and think for a while instead of stewing in his anger like he usually does.

The one thing that's kept Dvd going is the hope that one day they'll get David back. That once the monster was out, David would remember them and everything would go back to the way it was before college. Even if David was a toxic disaster before college, he was their toxic disaster and they took care of him and protected him and shared everything with him all the time. They were as close to a single person as their system could ever be. Divad had even stopped being angry at David, and not the way he is now, because he's turned himself off. They were happy together, they were. Life was actually okay, it was good.

It's no wonder the monster chose that moment to rip them apart. The monster always loves waiting for the perfect moment. He left them alone just enough to trick them into letting down their guard. That's what he's doing now. That's what he always does.

Dvd's never letting his guard down ever again. He learned his lesson and he'll never forget it.

The shit beetle knows Dvd wants David back. He knows that's the one thing that Dvd can't help but want. He knows it'll kill Dvd if David wants to be with them and they reject him, and he knows that if they accept David back it's only leaving them wide open for a knife to stab deep into their heart and twist.

But that's what the shit beetle does best. He makes them hurt themselves because it would hurt even more if they didn't. He turns them against each other and once the knives are in deep, he makes them twist the handles themselves. It's always the same. This time will be the same, too.

But for David, Dvd will let his heart be stabbed. He'll grab that handle and twist as hard as he can. He knows that will be the only choice he can make. But he'll only do it for their David. And if David accepts them, if he gives himself to them the way he always did, then he'll be their David and nothing else will matter because the three of them being together was the only thing that ever mattered.

But David hasn't accepted them yet. He's still someone else, someone Dvd's heart doesn't know. His heart won't be stabbed for this David. So until that miracle happens, Dvd will stay on guard. He'll keep watching everyone and most of all he'll keep guarding David. Because that's what he was made for, protecting David. He forgot that for a moment but he won't forget it again.


	46. Day 8: And why should I let you save him?

It’s been a long time since Divad had to just— Talk. To people. He used to do it all the time when he covered for David, but he spent the last decade trapped with Dvd and the most they could do for conversation was tense, angry shouting. 

Not much has changed for the two of them since the monster left. 

Yet here he is, sitting at the table with a bunch of people who are trying to hold a conversation with him even though they can’t see or hear him. That’s definitely different. They’re probably imagining another David sitting next to David, mouthing the words David relays for him like he’s a muted television with the subtitles on. He’s watched a lot of muted television with subtitles over the past six years. 

"Divad?" David prompts, concern in his thoughts and his voice. "Cary asked you what card games you and Dvd like to play."

"Ah, double solitaire," Divad says. They started playing it ages ago as a joke, but it stuck. They played triple solitaire with David, but he doesn’t remember that. "Rummy, war, 52 pick-up." The last is another joke. Cary and Kerry both get it but not the others. Amy doesn't get it because it was their private joke and they didn't share it with her. David should get it. It was his joke. 

"52 pick-up?" David asks, not getting it.

Divad pulls a deck of cards from his pocket and holds it out. "52 pick-up," he drawls, and tosses the cards over David like confetti. David flails at the cards even though they pass right through him. "Pick em up."

"Hilarious," David rolls his eyes, amused and annoyed, exactly how he always rolled his eyes, and it makes Divad’s heart hurt. 

Divad pushes the pain away like he’s been pushing so many feelings away. It’s started to make him feel numb, suppressing so much of himself, but he’s survived worse torture with worse numbness. As long as he’s still— Passable, he’ll be fine. Of course, it’s been a long time since there was anyone who cared if he was fine. Or knew he existed to care. 

He’s fine. He’s got this. He’s managing his own emotions just like he’s managing David’s. Not that David needs help right now, even though David was falling apart when Divad left to chase after Dvd and didn’t come back. 

He should have come back even if Dvd didn't want to. Staying in their bedroom was a mistake. If he'd just come back, David wouldn't have destroyed it. Divad wanted to bring him to their bedroom properly and tell him all about how it helped them. David made it for them to help them even though the monster kept him from going into it himself. They'd pulled David into it in the desert because the situation was desperate, because they were angry, because David was falling apart even though they were back and helping him again. They needed to help him more. That's how they’ve always worked.

But David doesn't remember how they work.

"Cary and I always played a lot of word games when I was inside him," Kerry tells them, then looks to Cary. "We haven't in a while, but— Maybe we could play one now."

"That's an excellent idea," Cary says. "You pick."

Kerry thinks. "How about— Pill-based neuropsychiatric medications, listed alphabetically. I'll start: Abilify."

"Brintellix," Cary says, and looks to David and Divad. At the empty chair beside David.

David looks to Divad, at a loss. Divad shrugs and looks at Cary. "Medication was never something we liked thinking about." Because they were forced to take it. Because they were guilted and manipulated into taking medication for a disease they never had. Every single day they had to swallow down things that hurt them while other people watched them take it. It was just another one of the monster's tortures.

David relays that, oblivious to the truth behind it. After the monster made David forget, David believed he was schizophrenic, that he'd always believed he was schizophrenic. He took the medication believing it would help him. He accepted all the treatments, believing they would help him, and all the while Divad and Dvd screamed the truth at him but he couldn’t hear them.

David knows now that he was never schizophrenic, but he doesn't know the rest. They could tell David everything now, but they can’t because telling David the truth hurts him. That’s why Divad didn’t go back even though he knew that David needed him. Trying to get back what they had, trying to resurrect the past — David barely survived all of that the first time through. Making him live it all again would be too much. It’s already been too much. They’re supposed to protect David, not torture him. They know better than to fall for the monster’s tricks but they did anyway because David can’t survive not knowing, either. He needs to know. 

The best they can do is go slow. Give him a little of their past at a time so he can absorb it safely, even though going slow is too much and not enough at the same time. Dvd keeps accusing Divad of lying to David, but Dvd lies to him, too. They have to lie to him because telling him the truth would be worse. And of course the monster knew it would be that way. He left knowing their system was so wrecked that it could never recover. He couldn't force them back into David and he couldn't destroy them so he destroyed their life forever by destroying David.

Almost. Almost destroyed, and not never. They let themselves think it was never. They tried to leave their system but— David wouldn't let them. David's still fighting to come back to them and that means they can't give up on him. They went through hell together and never gave up on each other. They're still in hell and they're still not giving up.

Amy and Syd and Ptonomy start suggesting other games, but David's attention drifts from the conversation. It's hard for him to stay engaged when he has so much on his mind, so many thoughts jostling around in his head, vying for the limited mental energy he can spare. He was run down before they left and whatever reserve of strength he was able to tap into, he spent it getting them back and then enduring Dvd's fury. He's exhausted but forcing himself to stay with his friends, with Divad. He's desperate not to dissociate, not to go away; he believes them to be the same thing and maybe they are. Maybe, as David thought the other day, going away is a form of suicide. Maybe hiding in their bedroom was, too. Abandoning their system definitely was. Divad thought it would be for the best, to let David be with his friends. Their friends, because their friends did everything their system couldn't. They got the monster out and they made David better and they showed him that he's part of his system. Dvd and Divad couldn't do any of that.

Before, when David tried to think about their system, his thoughts would recoil from the idea like it was poison. It hurt deeply to be rejected by David that way, again and again. And even when he stopped recoiling in horror, thinking his life was over because of them, he still wouldn't reject the delusion the monster put inside him that he's always been alone inside himself, even though he knew for a fact that he was never alone. Divad recoiled from being compared to the monster, but thanks to the monster that was the only way David could even begin to understand them.

But slowly, a little at a time, they're killing that delusion, that parasite. It's getting weaker now, so weak that David's able to spend that limited mental energy on them: on his brothers, on their system and how they all fit together inside it. Three parts of a whole, three matching pieces in a three-piece jigsaw puzzle that fit perfectly together. They're good, healthy, nutritious thoughts, and every time David thinks them, the delusion weakens and he gets stronger. Their system gets stronger.

Divad keeps quiet, listening to David's thoughts, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he lightens his iron grip on his emotions, allowing himself to feel— Relief. Joy. It's— Terrifying to let himself feel those emotions again. It feels like hoping will only bring disaster. It probably will, but— David has hope, and that means they all have hope whether they want to or not. David was always the one who hoped for them, even though he suffered the most. He wasn't as open and trusting as he is now, the way the monster made him be, but— He was never as angry and cynical as Dvd is, or as cold and logical as Divad knows he can be. David always hoped and loved and dreamed despite having absolutely no reason to hope or love or dream. That could be infuriating, but it was also infuriating when David gave up hoping and loving and dreaming. Divad isn't angry now because he shut his anger down because he finally realized that Dvd was right. David can't take Divad's anger, not anymore. He couldn't really take it before college either, but he took it anyway. And David can't even remember Divad's anger to accept his apology for it. So if Divad has to suppress his anger for the rest of their life, that's what he'll do. He won't end up like Dvd did, so consumed by fury that he tries to talk David into suicide — not now that he accepts that he already did.

David thinks it isn't fair that Divad and Dvd can hear his thoughts but he can't hear theirs, that they remember everything but he doesn't. David wants to help them the way they help him. But David doesn't remember how they work. It's their job to keep him safe. It's their job to cover for him and share his life so he can live. It's their job to know the things it would hurt him too much to know. That's how they survived and that's how they have to be to keep surviving. Even if things can never go back to how they were, some things haven't changed, they can't change. They know what's best for David, and that's what's best for David.

David's thoughts are slowing, the day catching up to him even as he finishes his dinner. He's forcing himself to eat like he forced himself to eat breakfast, trying to stay with everything he has. But he needs to rest. He certainly doesn't need to wear himself out for Divad's sake, relaying his words to people that are only making the effort to hear them for David's sake. So when David starts nodding off, Divad nudges their hypothalamus, triggering inhibitory signals and hormones that will quiet David's mind and their body. 

Amy sees David falling asleep and uses her Vermillion to hold him up. "David," she says, giving him a shake.

David rouses, fighting the sleepiness that's pulling on him. "Hmm?"

"Time to go to bed," Amy says, like she used to. Divad might have suppressed his anger at her, but he still remembers how much she used to mean to all of them. David does too, and feelings of safety and home wrap around him like a blanket.

David looks at the clock on the wall. "It's too early," he slurs. 

"We were early birds, remember?" Amy says. "Early to rise, early to bed."

Divad waits, holding back until Amy's coaxed David to say goodnight and get ready for bed. But once David is under the covers and looking sleepily at the Vermillion, Divad nudges again and David's eyes fall shut. He starts coaxing their body toward slow-wave sleep. He'll let David cycle but extend his slow-wave sleep throughout the night so that their body can restore itself and restore David with it. Their brain will work as David sleeps, helping him to think and remember more clearly than he ever could when they had a monster in their head. But he has to make David forget, too— Forget the intense nightmares that torture him every night. Divad keeps them from waking David up, and as long as David doesn't wake up, he forgets them. And as long as he forgets them—

Divad spent years figuring out how to stop the nightmares and help their body sleep. The monster wouldn't let him use that knowledge, but he can use it now. Their mind is their own and the monster can't hurt them from the inside anymore. Dvd makes sure of that, guarding their body as Divad works to heal the damage the monster left behind within it. There's so much to heal, but they've made a start.

He hopes that someday soon David will have a good dream and it will be safe for Divad to let him remember it. Maybe it will even be a dream about being with his brothers. But it's not safe to let David remember any dreams, good or bad, because the monster doesn't need to be inside their body to hurt David. Dreams connect their body to the vast subconscious of the astral plane, and Farouk used that link to visit David once already. He's still using it to send David nightmares, just like he did when he was inside them. Divad can't guard David's dreams, but he can guard his memory. As long as David doesn't remember, whatever happens in his dreams simply goes away. Farouk can shout all he wants, David can't hear him.

Divad is sitting in the chair next to the Vermillion, and when Ptonomy comes over, he stands and gets out of the way. But Ptonomy doesn’t take the chair. 

"I'm guessing Divad is sitting next to you," he tells Amy. "Divad, you just made David fall asleep, right? I know you can't answer me. I know David needs to sleep and you're only trying to help him. But you need to talk to David about what you're doing to him before you manipulate him like that. He's had enough choices taken away from him already. You have to let him make decisions for himself."

Divad doesn't bother to reply. There's no way for Ptonomy to hear him and even if he could, Ptonomy doesn't understand how they work. David needs help so Divad helps him. That's how they fit together.

"When Oliver comes back in the morning, I want us to have our first session," Ptonomy says. "I want us to have it through the mainframe so David can't hear it. I want you to be able to speak honestly with me and I think you're not comfortable doing that if David can hear you. If that's a problem, we'll talk about it once we can speak privately." He turns back to the table. "Syd, you'll be up after that."

"We're really filling up your schedule," Syd says, wryly. 

"My dad used to say we'll sleep when we're dead," Ptonomy replies. "Turns out he was wrong. In the meantime we should all get some rest." He looks towards the door. "You too, Dvd."

Dvd’s reply is a raised middle finger.

§

They should all get some rest, Ptonomy included. But Ptonomy has one more person to talk to before he can go back into the mainframe for the night, to rest and think and plan with Amy and Lenny.

He takes the elevator up and walks to the room Division 3 gave to Amahl Farouk. He knocks on the door. Farouk is expecting him — not just because he's always listening, but because Ptonomy asked Clark to arrange the meeting for him.

Ptonomy expects the monster wants to talk to him now that he's found a way to help David without torturing him. Farouk visited Syd twice for daring to help David in a way that went against Farouk's plans, and he hurt her both times in revenge. Ptonomy's done letting Farouk hurt people, so here he is, willingly walking into the lion's den. He doesn't have a god to close this lion's jaws, not yet, so he just has to hope his faith is enough: his faith in himself, in David, in the love David shares with the people who love him back.

Ptonomy always preferred his mother's Dàoism to his father's Christianity; she's the one who gave him his first copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. But being dead and facing off an omniscent, god-like monster puts Ptonomy very much in a biblical frame of mind.

The door to the suite opens and swings wide. Ptonomy walks in to find a very— Un-Division 3 environment. The only thing left of the old decor are the hexagon windows. All the hard, modernist lines are gone, replaced with— It looks like something that would have been the height of style a century ago and thousands of miles away. Chinese Chippendale chairs made of bamboo, a zebra skin rug, a shelf of leatherbound books with the embossed titles too faded to read. Oversized urns and classical sculptures of the heads of Greek gods. On a pair of high-legged armoires are shaded lamps, tall candles, a clear glass orb, and a stone nautilus, its mineral cirri extended. The bed and kitchen are gone, but there's a tray on a stand with a used cup and plate. Division 3 has been providing room service.

It's easy to forget how old Farouk is because he doesn't look like he's been alive since the nineteenth century. He's an old monster, outdated; he doesn't belong in their world. He doesn't believe that, but he's been trapped inside of David Haller's head for thirty years, making David believe anything Farouk wanted him to believe. Farouk thinks their world is as soft and malleable as the inside of a child's developing mind. He thinks he can sculpt one of his terrible sunrises for seven billion people. Ptonomy intends to prove him wrong.

The monster himself is sitting comfortably at the center of the room, facing a perfectly empty wall. Presumably the only entertainment he needs is David's suffering and he wouldn't want anything to distract from that. He's still wearing the same suit and sunglasses he wore in the courtroom a week ago, but everything about him is immaculate.

"I see you've done some redecorating," Ptonomy observes. He doesn't close the door and Farouk leaves it open. That's fine. Ptonomy doesn't intend to stay long.

"I decided to made myself at home," Farouk says, with his usual placid menace. "You have all been so generous to me. So giving. But— _Schönheit ist überall ein gar willkommener Gast._ Beauty is a welcome guest everywhere."

"Goethe," Ptonomy recognizes. He quickly searches the mainframe for the original German. " _Die Wahlverwandtschaften_ , if I'm not mistaken."

Farouk grins, baring his perfect teeth. "And here I thought I had returned to a cultureless world. Or has death transformed you? _Le grand renouvellement._ "

"The grand renewal," Ptonomy translates for him; he doesn't need the mainframe for that. "You could call it that. But we're not here to talk about me."

"David," Farouk says, drawing out the name like he's savoring a morsel of fine cuisine. "Yes. Please, doctor, tell me about our patient. How is his progress? Is he 'better' yet?"

"I never got a doctorate," Ptonomy says. The route he took to becoming a therapist in Summerland was far from conventional, but so was everything about that place. "And you don't need me to tell you how David is doing. You know that better than anyone."

"True," Farouk admits. "Then tell me, what do we need to discuss? You're the one who asked to speak with me."

"I'd like to discuss David's treatment."

Farouk pauses with exaggerated consideration. "Have you come to seek my advice? As you say, I do know him most— Intimately."

Ptonomy ignores the way that makes his stomach turn. "You've voiced concerns about his treatment twice before. I thought it best to address any new concerns now, before they're a problem. You are a part of David's therapy."

"I am his jailer."

"You're also the person keeping him alive."

Farouk chuckles. "Perhaps we should discuss you. You're much changed since the last time we met. I was quite surprised by your sudden compassion. Of all of David's friends, I thought you would be the most eager to kill him."

"Is that why you killed me?" Ptonomy asks. The insanity monster had clouded his thoughts for days before its paranoid delusions took full hold of him — the same days that Farouk and Future Syd were using to chip away at David's sanity and support. "I had the least sympathy for David. If you'd left me alone, I would have stopped him before he got out of control."

"Would you have?" Farouk asks, skeptical. "You think very highly of yourself. Perhaps I simply needed an incubator. A convenient body to breed in."

In the mainframe, Ptonomy shudders in horror. But he doesn't let it show on his new face. "Maybe," he allows. "I'm just another ant to you, right? All of Division 3, we're just— An ant farm you're keeping. You like to watch us scurry around, building our colony, but you could wipe us all out with a wave of your hand."

"Such honesty," Farouk says. "It's refreshing."

"Honesty is important," Ptonomy replies. "You know the truth and so do we. You might be the one keeping David alive, but only so you can use him to end the world. Division 3 won't let that happen."

"More arrogance. The ants can do nothing to stop the crush of the giant's boot."

"They can if they have a giant, too."

"Then you do intend to save him from me?"

"I intend to help David save himself," Ptonomy says, calmly. "To help him love himself."

Farouk grins again. "Love," he says, amused. "Do you know what love is? Have you seen it, the chemicals in the brain? Love is electrons, signals sent this way and that. Love is the great delusion afflicting the ants. Love is what eats David alive and love will destroy him."

"Then will that be a problem?" Ptonomy asks. "For love to be his treatment?"

"The ant thinks he is clever," Farouk says, his smile growing more menacing than amused. "You come here as if you have the right to address me, your god. Do you think you can do this because you're safe from me? I promise you, you are not."

"I'm aware of that," Ptonomy says. "But you're not anyone's god."

"I am David's god," Farouk says. "And so I am god of all the world."

"That's your arrogance."

Farouk clenches his jaw, then forces himself to relax. "You think love can save him from me? Nothing can save him from me. He is my creation, my child. He is clay. Or— Putty, like the kind you pressed against the newspaper as a little boy in your mother's kitchen. You press the putty against the page and look, there is the little cartoon, copied perfectly. But then you crush the putty in your hand and voilà! The cartoon is gone."

Farouk probably intends the memory of his mother’s death to upset him. But Farouk doesn’t know him very well if he thinks remembering is something he’s afraid of.

Ptonomy knows Farouk has been inside his head. He knows Farouk must have read his mind while he was hiding inside of David, and that he had the chance to do it again when they were all in the fantasy Clockworks together. Ptonomy has listened to David thinking about that time, about how Farouk changed their minds with their own buried truths. Back then, Ptonomy didn't like David or trust him. But in the fantasy Clockworks, Ptonomy was David's best friend, like Lenny used to be. That was the truth Ptonomy didn't want to face: that deep down, he did like David, he did want to be his friend and protect him.

But Ptonomy barely registered as important to David then, so he wasn't important to Farouk either. Farouk stuck the knife in but he didn't bother to push it deep. He didn't bother to force Ptonomy to twist the handle. It took Ptonomy's own death and resurrection and David's near-destruction to finally make him see that truth.

"No," Ptonomy says, certain. "The ink isn't gone, it's inside the putty. Everything you think you've taken away from David is still inside him. I meant what I said to him. He's incredibly strong to have survived. You're out of his head now and he can use that strength for himself. He can turn it against you."

"And why should I let you save him?" Farouk challenges.

"Because if you don't, David will kill himself," Ptonomy says, putting every ounce of truth behind it. "Your threat to our lives won't be enough, not when weighed against the world. You pushed him right to the edge, thinking you could break him in just the right way. But your chisel slipped and you shattered him. You can't find the sculpture in a pile of rubble. You could make David forget, but that would mean undoing all your hard work, and where's the challenge in doing it again? It would be dull and you don't like dull."

"You think you know a great deal," Farouk says, irritation peeking out from his placid facade. "You think you understand David because you’ve heard his thoughts? I know everything about him. I know everything he has forgotten, every fantasy and fear and the secrets he keeps even from himself. You think he is free of me because I'm outside of his body? I'm part of him, like the parts of himself that he thinks are other people. We are one, David and I. Our separation is a delusion. You entertain it, like you entertain his delusions about his sickness."

"And what do you think his sickness is?" Ptonomy challenges.

"He has so much sickness," Farouk says, with the delight of someone looking over an assortment of chocolates. "But these diseases you name for him, they're irrelevant. He is mad. Insanity is his curse and even I could not cure him of it. David understands the consequences of this. He knows his madness dooms him. But you feed it. You grow his delusion and ensure he will never be whole."

"David is already whole," Ptonomy counters. "He just needs to accept and love himself."

"Another delusion," Farouk says, dismissive. 

"You saw how compassion helped him."

"David is clay," Farouk insists. "He is so soft even you can mold him. He lets your ideas into him only because I designed him to receive mine. You think you have given him hope? He has hoped countless times before. You think love will spare him from pain? Love is the surgeon’s blade. Hope is salt, giving flavor to his despair as it burns in his wounds."

Ptonomy takes this in. "Then we're in agreement about his treatment? You won't interfere?"

Farouk shakes his head in amusement. "This word 'compassion,' do you know where it comes from? _C'est francais._ It means, originally, 'to suffer with.' So yes, by all means, continue to suffer with David and to make him suffer with you. Feed his delusions. When David returns himself to me, I will save my greatest _compassion_ for you and you alone."

"I'm sure you will," Ptonomy says. "Until then I'll do everything I can to help David love. Maybe you're right, maybe I’m right. The only one who can make that decision is David."

"This conversation has become dull," Farouk warns, his mouth in a thin line.

"Thank you for your time," Ptonomy says, and walks out.

"Fuck," Lenny swears, staring at him in the mainframe. "Did you have steel balls before you were an android?"

Ptonomy's knees are weak. He leans against the wall, commanding his body to return to the lab while also letting the wall hold him up. "What did Clark say? We’re used to mouthing off to unstable gods."

"You just dared him to destroy the mainframe and torture you."

"But he didn't." Ptonomy straightens. "Farouk thinks David is his, but we just took him back. David’s ours. We’ve got him and we’re not letting him go. Farouk needs David alive so he has to let us save him. He had to make that choice because we took his other choices away. He can’t define what better is for David because we’re giving David the chance to define himself."

"I can't believe that worked," Lenny says, shaking her head. 

"We couldn’t have won this without you," Ptonomy says. "You told us what Farouk made you say to David about love. You helped us realize that love isn't just what David needs, it's Farouk’s blind spot. He's a sadistic psychopath. He's cruel, overconfident, and demands gratification. He's a malignant narcissist who thinks he's the only real person in the whole world. Love is— Unimaginable, to someone like him. He can stare it in the face all day long but he can't see it."

"I hope we’re right," Amy says.

"Like I told Farouk, the only one who can decide that is David. But I believe our love will save David, and that David will save the world."

"I believe that, too," Amy says, hopeful. "Lenny?"

Lenny shrugs. "Guess we'll find out."


	47. Day 9: What kind of person did he show you how to be?

The relay comes back on at dawn when Oliver sits up and stretches. 

Part of Divad hoped that Oliver wouldn’t come back to them. His relay has helped David and Divad is grateful for that, but— Divad doesn’t need help. He agreed to talk to Ptonomy for David’s sake, not his own. He’s got himself under control and he doesn’t need other people listening in on his thoughts.

Ptonomy’s probably listening in already, and Amy and Lenny, too, and Division 3 and whoever else is tuned into their freak show. 

Divad could refuse to cooperate. He could do what Dvd is doing and lock himself down so he doesn’t have any thoughts worth overhearing. But Divad’s never been the self-isolating type. He and David faced the world together while Dvd watched their backs. That’s why the monster made him invisible and inaudible for a decade. Divad survived that torture by turning himself off, it’s true. He’s still surviving however he can. But—

"You don’t want to be invisible anymore," Ptonomy says, his voice coming in through Divad’s mind and not the quiescent android sitting across from him in the other loveseat, still in the illusion of sleep.

"I guess we’ve started," Divad sighs. 

"David’s still asleep," Ptonomy says. "I’m sure you’re keeping him asleep. Does he still need it?"

"Another two hours," Divad says. David needed to rest yesterday and instead he wore himself out again. "I’m only helping him as much as he needs me to. That’s how we work."

"That’s how you used to work. David is a different person now."

Divad frowns, annoyed. "Shouldn’t you be the last person to believe that?"

"David is still David," Ptonomy assures him. "He always has been and he always will be. But he has changed."

"The monster changed him."

"A lot of things changed him, including himself. Do you think David shouldn’t be able to change himself?"

"We help David because he made us to help him. We do what he can’t do for himself and he does the same for us. We’re a system, not three strangers who happen to be sharing a body."

"You’re strangers to David now. And he’s a stranger to you."

"He just forgot," Divad insists. "He forgets things. He’ll remember again when he’s ready."

"I hope he will," Ptonomy says. "But right now he doesn’t remember. How would you feel if someone outside your system tried to control you?"

Divad glares at the android, not caring that it can’t see him, that Ptonomy can’t see him even with all of Division 3’s cameras at his disposal. "You know very well that that’s all anyone has ever done to our system. You’re doing it now."

"I’m trying to help you like you help David. I’m trying to keep you from making mistakes and hurting your system. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Dvd protects your system from the world and you protect it from itself. You manage your body and the minds inside it."

That’s what David made him for, but it didn’t work out that way. 

"Because of Farouk," Ptonomy says, answering his thought.

"No shit because of Farouk," Divad says, borrowing Dvd’s surly grumble. 

"He turned you against your system," Ptonomy says. "He made you hurt David, so Dvd had to protect David from you. What else did he do?"

"You know what he did," Divad says, unwilling to repeat it. It was hard enough thinking it knowing his thoughts would be heard. 

There’s a pause as Ptonomy thinks, or maybe reviews his recordings. "He stopped you from helping. He isolated you from your body and from David. And now— You have it all back so you’re helping as much as you can. That’s a noble impulse, but there’s such a thing as helping too much."

"You wouldn’t say that if you knew how much help David needs. He’s sick. He’s sure as hell too sick to heal himself."

"If you want him to be strong, he needs to heal himself. He needs our help, but only for stabilization and support. He can’t stand without us, but he can’t walk if we’re holding him down."

"Cute metaphor," Divad says. "It might mean something if David was actually the whole person the monster made him think he is. Relying on each other is how we work."

"Because you’re not each a whole person?"

"Finally, he gets it," Divad drawls. "David, Dvd, and me, we’re a system. We’re parts of a whole. We do what David made us to do. Farouk messed that up, sure, but that’s why we have to put everything back the way it was meant to be."

"David wasn’t meant to be broken," Ptonomy corrects. "He was meant to be a whole person all by himself."

"We’re not going anywhere," Divad tells him, annoyed. "The monster couldn’t get rid of us and you sure as hell can’t."

"I don’t want to get rid of you. But David is a whole person and so are you and Dvd. Each of you is a whole, full person. You’re more than the ways you’ve survived. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t always be there for each other and support each other when support is needed. But your lives can be about more than what David needs."

"You sound like Syd," Divad says, suspiciously. "What, you think we should play games and get hobbies? Protecting David is how we survive. We barely have time to sleep."

"You could sleep when David sleeps. You could share that with him."

"It’s not safe. And even if it was, David doesn’t want us in our body," Divad says. "The monster took that away from us. So no, we can’t share that. We can barely share anything and you have no idea how much that hurts. It was bad enough when it was the monster doing it to us, and now—" And now David is the one torturing them. 

"You should talk to David about that."

"Yeah, that worked out so well last time," Divad drawls. They left because it hurt too much to bear, and now they have no escape at all. 

"Yelling at David and storming out isn’t talking," Ptonomy says. "You like to think of yourself as the rational, logical part of David."

"Dvd’s the one who yelled and stormed out," Divad corrects. 

"But you chose not to come back. You might have a rational explanation for your decision, but that’s not why you made it. You left David because he was hurting you. He didn’t mean to but he did. Just like he hurt you when he forced you to come back. Just like we hurt him when we forced him to stay and get treatment. We learn how to act from the people around us. David keeps his pain a secret because everyone keeps their pain secret from him. He tries to help but hurts because he makes decisions on behalf of others, because that’s been what everyone has done to him for his entire life. David is deciding what kind of person he should be now that he has the chance. What do you want to teach him? To suppress his emotions? To hurt people by helping them without their consent? That it’s okay to lie to himself and the people he loves?"

"Have I mentioned that I hate your telepathic therapy?" Divad asks, bitterly. 

"But you’re fine with forcing David to endure your own version of that," Ptonomy counters. "You guard your thoughts from him while listening in on every single thought he has."

"I tried to leave," Divad says. "The bedroom was the only way we had to not listen. That’s gone."

"But you still have the ability to let David hear your thoughts. You could make your relationship with him an equal one by being as vulnerable with him as he is with you."

"We can’t," Divad insists. "David can’t know what we know. That’s how we protect him."

"That’s how you used to work," Ptonomy allows. "But if it was meant to keep David safe, we all know that it didn’t. Nothing kept David safe. There was nothing any of you could do to truly keep your system safe, not then. But you can now. Your old relationship with David was destroyed along with his memories of it. David is trying to start a new relationship with you and Dvd. Start it with him. Make a new system from the ashes of the old one. An equal system made of three whole people, not three pieces."

"That’s not how we were made to be," Divad says, stubbornly. 

"Then adapt," Ptonomy says, firmly. "That’s what we’re all doing. That’s what everyone has to do all the time. David’s had to adapt to an enormous amount of change, but he’s doing it because he doesn’t want to go away. He doesn’t want to kill himself or end the world or do anything that will hurt the people he loves. He’s trying to not hurt you and Dvd, but he needs you to tell him the truth about your system and how it works and how it’s broken. He needs you to show him a better way to be. The three of you can build your new foundation together or you can keep hurting each other. It’s your choice."

"I see you’re learning from Farouk," Divad grits out. 

"I am," Ptonomy says. "But not the lessons he wants me to learn. He was a powerful presence during your formative years. What did he teach you? What lessons of his are you holding on to? What kind of person did he show you how to be?"

Everything in Divad rebels at the thought of the monster being part of him. That’s David’s fear, not his. But— They’ve always shared everything. They shared David’s hope and his torture. The monster was deep inside of David and so it was deep inside of them, too. It lived in their head and changed them and fed off their powers and their pain.

And as for their formative years, Divad and Dvd had their parents and Amy, they know other ways to be even if they haven’t been able to be them. But David barely remembers their parents. The monster didn’t want David to remember them because— Because Farouk wants to be the only kind of person David knows how to be. 

"That’s right," Ptonomy says. "Once you understand that, you also understand why it’s so important for us to all help David together. Why it’s so important for us to be better ourselves. Love and respect are the things that will save David and help him become the person he was truly meant to be. Not a victim or a villain, but a good person who loves others and is loved in return. A hero who makes the world a better place — not because he thinks he knows what’s right and forces it to happen, but because he asks people what they need and helps them make it happen. Do you think David deserves that? Because you told David you don’t think he does."

"That’s never gonna happen," Dvd says, from his chair by the door. "The shit beetle just heard all of that so it’s never gonna happen."

"That’s okay," Ptonomy says. "He already knows. I went to him last night and told him."

"Are you out of your dead mind?" Dvd yells, standing up. "Get that crown off our head right now, before it’s too late!"

"Farouk agreed not to interfere with David’s compassion therapy," Ptonomy says. "Or yours or any part of your system's treatment. Without love, David's shame will kill you. No one wants you to die."

"If you think you can trust the shit beetle, you’re insane," Dvd says. 

"This isn’t about trust, it’s about a mutual goal. We all need David to heal. In the state he’s in, he can’t end the world or save it because he’d rather end your system. So he has to get better. We have to show him how to get better."

"Insane," Dvd declares, sitting back down again. 

"I think we’re all a little crazy," Ptonomy admits. "But the world is a crazy place. It’s up to us to make it what we want it to be. So Divad, Dvd, what do you want your world to be? What do you want your system to be? I want you both to think about that while David sleeps. Maybe two hours will give you enough time to make your decision together."

"I told you, I’m not doing your stupid therapy," Dvd says. 

"I know. And I’m respecting that. But you did agree to group therapy for your system. This is part of that. So do it for David, if you can’t do it for yourself. Divad, how about you? Will you give it a try?"

"You’re asking a lot," Divad tells him. "A hell of a lot." They’d have to give up the very things that help them survive. They’d have to hurt David and their system. They’d have to put everything on the line with nothing to protect them from the monster. 

"I am," Ptonomy admits. "But I’m going to tell you the same thing that Syd told David. She’s made mistakes too, but she’s trying to get better because she doesn’t want to make them again. She believes David is worth saving. She loves you, too, both of you, because she loves David and you’re parts of David."

Dvd snorts angrily but Ptonomy continues. 

"Before we got Farouk out of you, your system never had a chance. He only let you think you did so it would hurt more every time you failed. I know that you're afraid, but we wouldn't be talking about this now if there wasn't any hope. For the first time, your system can truly make the choice to get better. We'll all be here with you, fighting every step of the way, but you have to take that first step. You, Divad and Dvd, both of you. You're the only ones who can do that. And you can do it because you’re here and alive and you have that choice. You can get better for David’s sake but I think you should do it for all of you, for your system’s sake. For the three whole people in that system who love each other with everything they have. Your system wouldn’t have survived without love. Trust that love to save you now that it finally can."

Divad sighs. "I’ll think about it. I’ll talk to Dvd, but— I can’t make any promises for me or him. And— If you mean it, all that stuff about respect, then you’ll respect us enough to give us privacy. At least until David wakes up."

"That’s fair," Ptonomy agrees. "I’ll do you one better. I want the three of you to talk about the relay together and decide if and when you want it back."

"What if we never want it back?" Divad challenges.

"Then Oliver and I will respect your system’s decision. The whole reason we made the relay in the first place was to hear you. As long as you can’t share your system’s body and David needs the crown, the relay is the only way for anyone but David and Oliver to hear you. And you don’t deserve to be trapped inside of David, silent and invisible to the world. You didn’t deserve it before and you don’t deserve it now. So please, don’t torture your system that way. Don’t do to yourselves what the monster did to you."

§

"Come on," Divad says. "Ptonomy's right, we have to talk about this. It's safe now, the relay's off. Oliver and Ptonomy even left the room."

"Like it matters if they're in the room," Dvd grumbles. "They're all spies, listening in on our thoughts. We can't trust them."

"David trusts them."

"David trusted his drug dealer," Dvd shoots back. "You spent, what, seven years stewing about that? And now you've turned yourself off so you don't care."

"I turned myself off because I care!" Divad says. "You were right, okay? I let the monster make me hurt David and I couldn't stop myself. I finally figured out how to stop myself so you should be happy about that. You should be delighted."

"Yeah well I'm not," Dvd says. "It's bullshit. You're lying to David and me and yourself. Don't ever expect me to be delighted about that."

"What do you want me to do?" Divad asks. "David forgot everything about us but he remembered my anger and it drove him to suicide. When you got that cord off his neck, you didn't save him from himself, you saved him from me. How am I supposed to live with that? But David needs me. You want me to be honest with David? How's he going to react to that, huh? Is that going to help him accept that we're a system? The only reason he trusts us at all is the same reason he trusted Benny. We came back and we were just voices in his head but he still trusted us and let us tell him what to do. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"

"Of course I do," Dvd says, angrily. "And David already knows you're angry with him. You've been yelling at him since we got him back. You told him he didn't deserve love."

"I said _we_ don't," Divad corrects. "None of us do. David thought we did and that's what got us into that whole mess with Syd. He's right, we should have stayed in Clockworks."

"You know what?" Dvd says. "Maybe you should keep yourself turned off. If you say any of that to David, you'll make him try to kill himself again."

"You shouldn't talk to David either, then!" Divad throws back. "I just want us to stop making mistakes. You're the one who actually told him to die!"

Dvd stands up and walks away, physically pained by his guilt. He doesn't do guilt, he does anger. He rounds back to Divad. "You want a mistake? That was my mistake, but I did it once. Once! I'm never doing it again. You've been blaming David for everything for years. You only stopped blaming him because he got so sick he couldn't function enough to make mistakes anymore. He needed you so much all the time and that gave you the excuse you needed to be the one in charge."

"David was still in charge," Divad defends.

"Liar."

"We were happy," Divad insists. "You were happy. David needed you just as much. We protected him together. We did everything together. He was grateful."

"Yeah," Dvd admits. "And how fucked up is that? I don't want anything to do with that fucking robot but he's right, David's different now. The monster did what we couldn't do, he made David better. He had to or he couldn't have taken us away. And now we're back and all we've done is make David worse. We got him back and we made him worse just so he'd need us again. How am I supposed to live with that?"

"We didn't mean to," Divad says. "We were trying to help him. If he'd just told everyone the truth in the first place—"

"You're doing it again," Dvd says. "You shut yourself off and you still can't stop. He trusted Syd more than anyone else and she told him not to tell. She might as well have ripped out his tongue."

"He told Syd and he told Farouk," Divad points out.

"Future Syd and Syd are the same person and he nearly sprained himself telling her. And Farouk— Thinking about that club is the last thing any part of David needs."

Divad walks away and comes back. "Fine. He couldn't tell anyone. I get it."

"Let it sink in real deep," Dvd growls.

Divad glares at him. "You know what? Ptonomy was wrong. Love can't save our system because we don't have a system. We're just— Three strangers who happen to share a body."

"Go and tell that to David, too," Dvd says, bitterly. "We'll be right back where we started and David will be begging Division 3 to kill him again. Is that what you want? David wants to die because he thinks he doesn't deserve to live. I say fuck the world, it deserves to end. What do you want? Tell the truth."

"I want the torture to stop," Divad says, tightly. "I know it's the monster's fault, but— If we were stronger, if we stopped making the wrong choices all the time, he wouldn't be able to make us hurt ourselves. You lash out, David fantasizes or blames himself, you're both always making things worse. And I am, too. I make things worse because I know we're making mistakes but I can't save us and that makes me angry. We saw our future and I still couldn't save us and— And I just wanted us to stop. Maybe— Maybe you're right. I do want us to die."

"I told you," Dvd says, but there’s no satisfaction in Divad finally admitting what was obvious all along. 

"So now what?" Divad asks. "The monster’s gone. We could kill our body, save the world. I’m sure you have no objection to Syd and Amy being tortured forever."

"We’re not killing David," Dvd says, putting his boot down hard on that idea. "I don’t give a shit about his friends or the world, but I’m never giving up on David." Not again.

"Fine," Divad agrees. "You stay and I’ll ask David to make a new bedroom for me. I don’t want to leave, but— I can’t trust myself not to hurt him."

"You hate being stuck in the bedroom," Dvd points out. "If you leave now David will blame himself. You’ll be torturing both of you and that will torture me. So no, not an option." Coward. Dvd's not giving him a way out of this. It's his mess as much as theirs, they all have to face it together.

Divad sighs in frustration. "So we’re trapped."

"We’ve always been trapped," Dvd says. "These people are delusional if they think they can make a deal with the shit beetle."

"They want to save us."

"They can’t."

Divad throws up his arms. "You just said we can’t kill our body and we can’t leave David. What’s left?"

Dvd closes his eyes, curses. "Therapy," he says, like the word itself is poisonous. It feels like poison, like a fate worse than death. Ptonomy's going to insist that Dvd work through his anger and open up and that might as well be a death sentence. Except dying is the only way out. Dvd would take it if it didn't mean taking David with them. The only thing worse than living is the thought of David dying. The whole point of their existence is to keep David alive. The monster took everything else from them but he couldn't take that. And then Dvd almost made it happen himself. The monster was gone but David was torturing them and that was even worse, that was absolutely unbearable. But David wouldn't let them leave just like the monster wouldn't let them die, and Dvd— 

Dvd snapped. He snapped just like David snapped, trying to make Syd love them again. Like David snapped after Ptonomy told him about his DID and he begged Clark and Cary to kill them. It took thirty years of torture to make Dvd snap because he's the strongest and because David is the only one the monster actually cares about. The monster doesn't really bother torturing the fragments David broke away from himself. He uses them to hurt David but he doesn't care about them for themselves because they aren't real. They're just more of David's delusions, his madness. That's why he let them go to the bedroom, that's why he let them remember. The shit beetle must have laughed and laughed, making David forget everything while two parts of him remembered. What a joke they must be to him.

Divad's always been the weakest link. He snapped so long ago and he never un-snapped. He was supposed to protect David and Farouk made him hurt David instead. Dvd was furious about that but protecting David mattered more than helping Divad. Dvd got why David broke, David was always breaking and healing and breaking again. But David had them to heal him, to keep him going no matter what. Dvd didn't need help, but— Divad did, and no one helped him. David couldn't and Dvd didn't want to.

If Dvd had turned on David years ago, if he'd hurt David over and over and been unable to stop himself from doing it— He didn't get it until now, because he'd always stood by David no matter what the monster did. Because he's the strongest one, he has all that justified anger to protect them with and it protects him the most. Divad is just— Logic, rationalization, self-control. It's no wonder he broke so early. He's all about control and he can't even control himself, much less David, much less Dvd, much less the monster who controlled all of them.

Dvd looks at Divad, really looks at him instead of just glaring at him. He really thinks about him instead of reflexively wishing him dead for hurting David. 

If Divad wanted to stop David, to make David kill their body— He was trying to stop and kill their system. Their whole system has wanted to die for a long time. They told themselves they stayed alive for each other, but now Dvd knows they stayed alive because the monster wouldn’t let them die. Dvd was never strong enough to stop the monster, so— That means the monster wanted him to save their body, because it was his body too even though he was just a passenger in it. He was being lazy again, making other people do the hard work. 

It’s humiliating, realizing that. It’s infuriating and completely humiliating to have been— Manipulated. Tricked into believing he was saving them when the whole time— 

For the first time, Dvd gets why Divad turns himself off. If he could stop feeling this without killing their system, he’d do it in a heartbeat. 

The shit beetle needs David alive. He needs David to be David so David will love him. Dvd wants to carve out the shit beetle's eyes for daring to look at David and think of love. The shit beetle wouldn't know love if it stabbed him in the heart. He doesn't know love like Dvd knows love. Dvd has loved David his whole life; that love wavered exactly once, but only as a reminder to never let it waver again. Dvd's love is steadfast and unconditional.

But Divad is a part of David, too. And Dvd stopped loving him. He wasn't steadfast or unconditional for Divad. He was— He was like Syd, only loving the part of David he wanted to love, punishing the part of their system that let them down.

Dvd never wants to be like Syd. Syd hurt David so much. Syd made David help the shit beetle. She made David go to the club. She let Amy die, and Dvd hates Amy but he hates David's grief even more. Syd was just like the shit beetle, manipulating David and hurting him and making him hurt himself. That's what the shit beetle did to all of them. He made them all just like him, even Dvd.

Dvd thought he'd never been broken, not like his brothers were, because he never turned on David. But— He must have been because he's supposed to protect their whole system, not just David and himself. He broke and he didn't even know it. And what was the last decade if not he and Divad brokenly torturing each other? And being able to protect David when Divad couldn’t only made Dvd hurt Divad more, righteously rubbing Divad’s failures in his face. 

They all want the torture to stop, but they're the ones doing it. The shit beetle sets them up but they're the ones who actually make it happen. He's too lazy to do it himself so he makes everyone else do it for him. But if they're the ones doing it— Then maybe they can make it stop. 

"Divad," Dvd says, trying with all his might to set his anger aside. "We need help."

"I know," Divad says, tersely.

"Not— To stop the monster," Dvd says. "To stop hurting each other. You can't stop hurting David and— I can't stop hurting you. And that's— That's what he wants us to do. You know that. We all know that."

Divad stares at him, startled by Dvd's sudden empathy. Then he looks away. "You only hurt me because I hurt David."

"There you go trying to control everything again," Dvd says. "You couldn't hurt David for all those years. I tortured you anyway. I couldn't stop even though the monster forced you to stop. It was wrong and—" He has to do this, he has to do this. If Syd could do this, so can he. "I'm sorry. I was wrong."

Divad stares at him again. Then he blinks. "Is Dvd the one in our body right now? Because Dvd never apologizes. That's what David does."

"I'm making a big effort here," Dvd says, tersely. "Don't push it."

Divad looks over at David's sleeping form. "I know you're only saying it for him."

"I'm saying it for all of us," Dvd says. "I'm saying it because— I don't want to be three strangers who happen to share a body, okay? I want us to be brothers. I want us to be a system that isn't a burning, toxic disaster. I want us to not be actively on fire. So this is me, putting out one corner of the flames. Or trying to. That's— That's how this stupid therapy thing works, right? We don't have to fix everything at once. We just have to try— Fixing something. That's what David does, anyway." He shrugs. "Seems to be working for him."

"You're the one who never needs help," Divad points out. "You're the strongest, the one who protects everyone else."

"Well apparently I'm not perfect," Dvd says, tersely. "Shocking, I know. Rub it in my face, I don't care. You might not care about our system anymore but I still do. I should have cared about it more. I should have protected you and not just David. I fucked up, okay? So I have to fix it."

Divad gives him a long, considering look. "You do," he says, finally. "But I have to fix it, too. And so does David. If we're a system, then— We're supposed to share everything."

"Yeah," Dvd says, roughly. He looks over to David. He misses David so much. He's right there and Dvd misses him so much.

He's not the one who cries. David's the one who cries. But Dvd wipes at his eyes anyway.

"We'll get him back," Divad says.

"Should I be telling you that?"

"We're supposed to be thinking outside of what we're supposed to do," Divad reminds him. "You don't always have to be the strong one. And— I don't always have to be the realist."

"Pessimist," Dvd corrects.

Divad sighs. "Pessimist," he accepts. "Whatever, I don't have to be it, apparently. So— I'm going to try to be— Not that. David's hopeful. I want to try being hopeful."

"Now I know we're fucked," Dvd says. He doesn't want to feel hope. Hope is deadly. The only way they've survived has been anger and denial and shame.

But they didn't survive. That's what Syd said, what Ptonomy said. They didn't have a chance and all the ways they thought they survived— They were just more ways for the monster to hurt them. All the ways they thought they were protecting themselves, all they were doing was— Letting the delusion eat them alive.

"You know how you kept telling me and David we're delusional?" Dvd asks. "I think we all are. Our whole system is— Infected."

"The delusion parasite?" Divad asks.

Dvd nods. "David's friends got the other one out, right? Maybe they can get this one out, too."

"That's what David thinks," Divad says. "He's trying to fight it. But he's not very good at doing anything on his own. He needs his system."

"He needs his brothers," Dvd insists. Then he frowns. "I wish he remembered everything already. We could just— apologize and move on and be better. Instead we have to rip him open just so he can have the same wounds as us. And we have to rip ourselves open, too."

"He doesn't have to know."

"If he doesn't know, that's more ways the shit beetle can hurt him," Dvd says. "If we don't tell him, the monster will find a way to make him remember. Memory is his favorite weapon. He made David forget so much. What if he makes him remember?"

"The memories aren't there," Divad says. "Not the ones David suppressed, but— The damage is physical. I'm doing everything I can, but it's going to take time to heal our brain. And whatever the monster ripped out, there's no way to put it back. Not unless he found some way to— To save it."

Horror comes over Dvd. "Like he saved Amy."

Divad is just as horrified. "Amy was a bomb, buried deep inside of Lenny. And the longer it took to find her—"

"It's been ten years," Dvd says. "If David keeps remembering—"

"We have to talk to Ptonomy," Divad says, urgently. "Shit, the relay is down."

"But Oliver can still hear us," Dvd says. "Oliver! Hey, Oliver! OLIVER!!!"

"You called?" asks Oliver.

"We've got a huge fucking problem," Dvd says. "Turn that relay back on, we gotta talk. Oh, and tell Ptonomy he's got another patient. Fuck the shit beetle, we're all getting better."


	48. Day 9: Love makes us weak.

David's sitting in a chair, surrounded by equipment and activity. Kerry's attaching electrodes to his head while Cary bends over a computer, brow furrowed with concentration. Oliver has a chair pulled up next to him and has his brow furrowed as well as he telepathically searches David's mind. Syd can't see them, but apparently Divad and Dvd are also helping out, trying to protect David from whatever Farouk might have left inside him. Ptonomy and Amy are in the mainframe looking at David's old brain scans while their androids sit at the table, eyes closed.

David is, quite honestly, keeping remarkably calm. He does have Divad helping with that, but Syd thinks it's more that he's used to being everyone's lab rat. Calm isn't the same as happy, though. David is definitely not happy about any of this.

Syd can't get closer to him than this, not without getting in the way of everyone else. She doesn't have medical experience and she can't read minds. Swapping souls did help with Amy so she's not so much benched as in reserve, but it's not a hidden soul that's the problem, it's hidden memories. They were ripped out of David years ago but Farouk wouldn't have thrown away something he could use to torture David. He uses every part of the cow. He might have butchered David's memories, but David's life before college was— Divad and Dvd won't say what it was, but it wasn't anything anyone should have to relive, much less all at once, much less David, who at this point can't bear to remember anything at all.

Syd would offer to hold David's hand, but— She doesn't know if that would be a good idea. She thought it was yesterday, but she was wrong. Or she was right, but— She was wrong, too. She hurt as much as she helped because David needs her but her presence still makes him hate himself. A lot of things make David hate himself. Every mistake he's ever made feeds the delusion that his torture was a rightful punishment and not just— Other people's cruelty. Their mistakes, their actions made with intentions good and bad.

She knew what he thought of himself. He didn't like talking about it, not with her, but it slipped out anyway. He told her that he thought he was worthless, that he was monstrous, that he wasn't worth loving. She heard him but she didn't understand. She thought she could love him enough to make him love himself, and she was wrong but she was right. According to Ptonomy, love and compassion are exactly what David needs so he can learn to have compassion for himself.

But she told David that their love made him weak. She pushed him away, trying to make him stand on his own, because she was mad at him: for depending on her, for not being with her, for not being strong enough to save the world. Because she was afraid of what he is, now that they know what he is: a mutant with incredible mental powers, so much power that the only thing strong enough to stop him is the monster that wants to use him to destroy the world.

In Clockworks, Syd loved David. She loved that sick, helpless, starry-eyed David and wanted him to get better so he could leave with her, even though she knew he was never going to leave. And then they both left in a mad, terrifying, exhilarating rush, and when the dust was just starting to settle, he was gone. Ptonomy was right: in that long, long year she looked for David, she realized that he wasn't her David at all. She wasn't just angry with him for being gone, she was angry with him for being a lie, for never having been the man she loved, for being an illusion.

Farouk always hurts them with the truth.

She thought he was weak and she was his protector. But he was always stronger than her and protecting her, even when he didn't know it. And that— She doesn't like that. Not just because of his powers. It puts her on edge, being protected, being the weak one, being helpless. She doesn't do helpless, she never has. She'd rather do the wrong thing than let the wrong thing happen to her by doing nothing, by being a victim. 

She didn't want to be a victim in Clockworks so she chose to be with the biggest victim of all. With someone who was sweet and handsome and clearly liked her and was so medicated that he could barely tie his shoes. He did everything she told him and that made her love him, because she thought obedience was the same thing as respect. And it was, but— It wasn't. 

David never had a choice; Farouk made sure of that. And that means— Farouk might have loathed the love she and David shared, but he needed it, too, so he could use that love as a weapon. Their love was just another part of the cow to him. That's why he kept them around in the fake Clockworks. David needs love to survive, but Farouk needs that love or he won't have anything to play with. That's why he lets them do all of this, all this therapy and helping and support. The closer they get to David, the more and sharper weapons Farouk has at his disposal to butcher David once he's healed. Maybe he thinks the mistake he made before was in letting that love weaken before he could use it. But it was weak because Future Syd was already using it for her own revenge on David.

Syd's not strong enough to stop Farouk from using her, not yet. But she won't be his victim again. She'd rather rip herself apart on her own terms than let the monster blow her up. She knows David would, too, which is why he's enduring all of these violations of his mind and body. None of them want to be Farouk's victims or weapons.

Syd promised David that this time would be different, that they wouldn't make him suffer living if there wasn't any hope of finally freeing him from the monster for good. But it's not enough for David to make the choice to get better. She has to get better. She has to or Farouk will make her his victim forever, one way or another.

They all have to get better. Everyone who loves David and David loves, they'll either save him or destroy him. Maybe both. Syd's done both, so has Amy, often in the same breath. 

But if the truth is Farouk's weapon of choice, it's also what will save them, if they're strong enough to face it before he can turn it against them. Ignorance won't shield them; he's already looked into their minds, he knows them better than they know themselves. He knows their secrets and their secret fears. But he doesn't care about them for themselves; that's why he mostly leaves them alone despite all the damage he could do. He only cares about David. He only sees them as parts of David, not whole, separate people with their own lives. That's even how he sees himself: that when he went inside of David, he became a part of David, inseparable. Not that David became a part of him or even that they became part of each other.

What did David say Farouk called them? Villain and hero, monster and prey, torturer and victim. And the moon and the sun. In all those other roles, Farouk is the aggressor, the powerful one that David reacts to and suffers under. But David is the sun. The sun and the moon, they look the same size from the surface of the earth. That's how eclipses work. But it's an illusion. The moon is so much smaller than the sun, so much weaker. It can't make its own light, it just reflects it. It's a kind of parasite, trapped in the sun's gravity while pretending the sun's power is its own. And the moon is big, its gravity is strong enough to make the ocean sway, but— it will never be the sun, no matter how hard it tries.

If Syd chooses to be with David, if David chooses to be with her, she'll never be stronger than him. She's not even as strong as Farouk, not in terms of their mutant powers. In that dark future she's trying to avoid, she let her fear of that power win. She might have had good intentions, trying to save the world, but she acted with cruelty, she delivered the punishment she thought David deserved. She could have done so many other things that would have actually saved him and stopped anyone from ever getting hurt, but she wanted him to suffer and she didn't care who she had to use to make that happen, even if that meant using herself. She made David betray himself and betray her, just to twist the knife she'd already stuck in his heart. And David let her. He didn't have a choice not to let her.

The truth hurts, it all hurts, and she's barely started to face her own truths. She's facing the truths she shares with David but that won't be enough. Even if Farouk only cares about them as parts of David, he'll use every part of them he can. He's obsessive, delusional, sadistic, but he's patient and meticulous and he's always listening. So they need to listen too, to themselves and to each other. Syd can't look inside of David's mind, but she can look into her own. She can look at everyone else and help them get better, too. Not the way she tried to help David, she knows that was wrong, but— Maybe if she can learn to help herself, she can learn to help someone else, before it’s too late.

§

It's going to take a while for everyone to finish searching David for whatever memory bomb is inside him, so Ptonomy returns to his body and pulls her out of the lab to have her session. Syd sits at the table in the garden and tries to clear her head. It's hard not to worry — she's so worried — but there's nothing she can do right now. Ptonomy told her to put her energy into herself and that's what she's been doing. That's why she's here, trying to be better so she doesn't keep making the same mistakes.

"He'll be okay," Ptonomy assures her, even though she didn't ask.

"Let's not talk about David," Syd says, tightly. 

"Okay," Ptonomy agrees. "Let's talk about you. Is there somewhere you'd like to start, or should I start for us?"

Syd can barely think about herself at all, much less figure out what she needs to work on. "You start."

"Let's start with Melanie," Ptonomy says, calmly. He's not as gentle as he is with David, who these days looks like he'd keel over from a stiff breeze, but there's no trace of the anger he used at their last session. He did say he wouldn't make things easy for her. "I looked through her notes. Her biggest concern was your fear of abandonment stemming from your mother's emotional abuse."

Ah. Definitely not easy. But wrong. 

"I wasn't abused," Syd says, her voice tight for a different reason. "My childhood was unorthodox. My powers prevented me from having touch. That's why I've been working on my haphephobia. That's why I got Matilda." She could use Matilda right now. David could probably use her, too.

She has to stop worrying about David and focus on herself. That's been her mantra since yesterday. It doesn't have the same punch as 'I'm here and I'm not alone', but— She has to focus on herself.

"You made good progress with Melanie," Ptonomy allows. "But you stopped too soon and you've been coasting ever since."

"Coasting?" Syd says, insulted. She can hold Matilda for hours. She can hold hands with people and not want to run screaming. 

"I recognize how much progress you've made," Ptonomy says. "But we're talking big picture here. I think you stopped your sessions because you were afraid to keep going. Melanie was pushing for another round of memory work and you didn't want that."

"I don't need memory work," Syd says. "I remember my whole life just fine."

"Memory work isn't about recovering memories, it's about facing them from a new perspective. It's a chance to see yourself as you truly were, not as you remember yourself being. Those are very different things. When you were trapped in your head, in your maze, you were in your past."

"I don't remember my maze," Syd says. "And I thought we weren't going to talk about David."

Ptonomy pauses, thinking, or maybe looking at something in the mainframe. It's hard to remember that he's not actually here with her. "When you both woke up, we asked you what happened. You didn't want to talk about it and neither did David, but he needed something to distract him while he waited for us to finish interrogating Lenny. He described seeing your life before he found you and woke you up. I think the things you showed him, the loop of your childhood and adolescence, I think that was your maze. I think when the monk died and you came back to yourself, you were able to take control of it. You repurposed it, changed it to teach David the lessons that you were already being forced to teach yourself."

"And those were?" Syd asks, challengingly.

"That love makes us weak," Ptonomy says, still with that same calm. "That pain is necessary, even essential to survival. That the world is a cruel, unforgiving place, and if we want any justice we have to be the ones to deliver it."

"What was your maze again?" Syd asks, coldly. "Something about flowers?"

"My core desire was to forget everything but the singular now. I think what's just as important is why that was my desire. I couldn't forget. Not just my own memories, but the memories of other people. I've spent my life helping people with traumatic memories, and every memory I walked through, that became mine, too. That's a lot of trauma, and even though I told myself it wasn't mine, my body didn't listen. I carried so much anger inside of me because of those memories. My core desire was to be where trauma could never exist. Somewhere without memory, eternally beautiful and peaceful."

Syd stares, taken aback.

"Being dead gives me a lot of time to think," Ptonomy continues. "When I lost my body, I lost my powers, but I also lost the trauma my body held. I can forget here, like everyone else. I miss my powers, but if I had the choice, I don't know if I'd want it all back. In a way, that memory work was-- Me abusing myself, giving myself pain I knew I'd never be able to forget. And I was in denial about it, so I didn't get the help I needed to process that pain. Processing isn't about remembering and forgetting. It's about allowing ourselves to know our own truths, to feel them fully and accept them as part of us. Let's talk about your truths."

"What, my foundation?" Syd asks, recognizing the phrasing. "I don't have a foundation."

"We all have a foundation. We usually build it when we're too young to know that's what we're doing, but it determines the course of our lives. It defines our world, whether we're aware of it or not." Ptonomy holds out the notebook and pen he brought up with them. "This is your notebook. If you need to write something down or make a sketch, put it in here, not anywhere else. Don't _ever_ use David's notebook again." 

There's that anger, the sharp, warning edge of it. Syd accepts the notebook without a word.

"Let's get started. What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about the world? We know one idea: love makes us weak."

Syd presses her lips together, annoyed, but she can't deny that's how she feels. She tortured David to make him believe it. _Love makes us weak,_ she writes.

It's unsettling to see it written down so plainly. She's always believed it, absolutely, but-- Maybe it's that now she knows how much damage that idea can do. She thought it was a universal law but she was wrong, there’s at least one exception.

“You taught David several of your truths,” Ptonomy continues. “Write those down, too.”

He doesn’t prompt her with those other truths, expecting her to know them. Syd reminds herself that she has to do this so she can’t be used to end the world. She has to rip herself apart so the monster can’t.

“Pain makes us strong,” she says and writes. “Life is war.” She looks at the three sentences. They feel deeply true. “Is this my foundation?”

“It’s part of it,” Ptonomy says. “A big part, but there’ll be other ideas. We need to find out what they are. And then— We can figure out which of your ideas need to change.”

Syd riles at that. “You want to change who I am.”

“So do you,” Ptonomy counters. “That’s how change happens, real change. We understand ourselves and our ideas and we teach ourselves to believe new ideas, ones that will help us be the people we want to be. Farouk forced his ideas on you in the desert and you ultimately rejected the ones that weren’t yours. I can help you create your new foundational ideas but only you can accept them and build on them.”

"Sounds like an organ transplant," Syd mutters.

"Then think of therapy as surgery and me as your immunosuppressant. Whatever helps you accept what we're doing here. People only get organ transplants because their old organs are killing them. They need new, healthy ones to survive. They can't get them from themselves, they have to depend on others for those new organs, they have to depend on doctors and drugs. Survival is extremely important to you. I'd say it might even be another part of your foundation. What do you think?"

Syd grits her teeth and thinks. She does have to survive. And accepting help, letting other people have control over her, even for her own good, she loathes it. She absolutely does. "I have to survive," she says and writes, and then: "I don't need help."

Those two ideas feel just as absolutely true as the first three. But the last one-- Apparently she can survive an apocalypse, but can't protect herself from everything. The world is full of powerful monsters, stronger than her thanks to their mutant DNA or money or politics. She couldn't protect herself from her own fears because she didn't let herself acknowledge their existence. She didn't know how dangerous Clockworks was, she didn't know David and Lenny were protecting her there, that being a white protected her. She couldn't stop herself from being thrown into Clockworks in the first place.

She recognizes another idea, but it's not compatible with the rest. She wants to reject it but she can't. 

"What's wrong?" Ptonomy asks.

"David's foundation-- He thinks he’s starting from scratch. So— He hasn’t put all his truths into it.”

“That’s right,” Ptonomy says, impressed. “Eventually he’ll be strong enough to face his old assumptions. They’re still inside him, just like his traumatic memories. But he needs to build a new identity first because Farouk destroyed his old ones. You don’t have that problem. Your identity is solid. But that means you have to do the work of pulling out the parts of it you don’t want, and you have to keep yourself from crumbling if those parts are structural.”

“Now I’m a building,” Syd mutters. 

“I’ve got plenty more metaphors if you don’t like those,” Ptonomy smirks. 

Syd sighs and looks down at her notebook again. She wants to add her sixth idea, but she doesn’t want to write it. She doesn’t want it to be part of her. 

“So what’s wrong with your foundation?” Ptonomy prompts. 

"I don't need help," Syd reads. "But I know that's wrong. I know it, but-- I don't believe it."

Ptonomy nods. "What else? There's something else."

He really wasn't kidding about not going easy on her. "If we can believe things but know they're wrong-- Can foundational ideas be things we don't want to believe?"

"Absolutely. We collect ideas as we grow. Just like David, we accept the world as it's presented to us, good and bad. The world is full of contradictory ideas and so are we. It's not necessarily a problem, unless those ideas are harmful or combine to be harmful. So what idea did the world present to you? What did you accept even though you didn't want it?"

"Maybe it's something I shouldn't accept because it's wrong," Syd says. "I thought I knew what it meant to be a victim but David and Lenny-- They're victims. I'm not a victim. I protect myself."

"You don't need help, but you need help," Ptonomy says, thoughtful. "You're a victim, but you're not a victim. Because you refuse to be one and because other people have it worse than you?"

"Yes."

"There's something we do that's called the victim Olympics," Ptonomy says. "We all compare our scars but only the person with the biggest scars wins acknowledgement of their pain. You know that's wrong. Dismissing our pain never helps us heal it. I don't care if it's a paper cut. We all feel pain, we all suffer. The people who I helped with my memory walks, I denied that their pain was mine and because of that I hurt myself and I hurt others. I classified people as either victims or threats, good guys or bad guys. But we're always both, to ourselves and to other people. I couldn't accept that David was a victim and so the only thing he could be to me was a threat, and that's how I treated him. All that did was make him worse. I wanted to see the world as black and white because that meant I didn't have to acknowledge my own responsibility for the war I was fighting in. I wanted Division 3 to be the bad guy because that meant I was the good guy, and good guys always do the right thing."

"Is this my therapy session or yours?" Syd asks, eyebrows raised.

Ptonomy straightens, collecting himself. "I guess we both need someone to talk to. But I bring those issues up because they're parts of us that match. We never got along, but that's because we both classified each other as threats right from the start, mostly because of David. You took his side and I didn't. We never got past that. But I'm done fighting wars I don't have to. I'd like us both to stop treating each other as the enemy. I'd like us to be friends."

"Because of Farouk?" Syd challenges.

"Because we've known each other for a year and we barely talked," Ptonomy says, plainly. "We both self-isolated. If I hadn't pushed everyone else away from me, maybe someone would have realized that I was infected before it was too late. Maybe I'd be alive right now. I might have mixed feelings about my powers but I absolutely do not want to be dead and trapped inside a computer. But I am. I'm dead. So is Lenny and so is Amy. Don't take your life for granted, Syd. Don't take any of this for granted because there are no guarantees. Face your truths before they destroy you and everyone else."

Syd takes a deep breath, looks up at the umbrella over the table. He's right, she knows he's right. She braces herself and looks back down at her notebook and forces herself to write her sixth foundational idea.

"I'm a victim," she grits out. 

"Good," Ptonomy says. "So who made you one? Who hurt you so much you had to accept that to accept the world?"

That's harder. 

"My mother didn't abuse me," Syd insists. "She didn't hit me, she didn't tell me I was worthless. She taught me how to defend myself against the world and how to survive it, just like she survived."

"I'm sure she did," Ptonomy says. "I'm sure she loved you and did the best she could for you. But she was a victim, too. Of the world, of her parents, maybe. She's not alive so we can't ask her about her pain. But she had to have been in pain because you told Melanie just how alike you two were. You were the Untouchable Barretts. You couldn't even touch each other. You were two lonely people who happened to share their lives with each other, but more than that, you both pushed everyone else away because you couldn't stand to let anyone get close enough to see your pain. You were both victims and didn't want to accept that so you made your pain a shield against the world. If someone dares to push past that shield, you punish them. You punished your mother's boyfriends for getting close to her, to you. You raped a man because you wanted him gone."

"He was a creep," Syd defends. "I was fifteen and he _liked_ me."

"Maybe he was and maybe he did," Ptonomy says. "That doesn't justify your actions and that's not why you did them. David's instability didn't justify my hostility to him. David's powers didn't justify your future self pulling him out of time to abuse and kill him. And your inability to touch didn't justify your mother's emotional abuse of you."

"Then blame my powers," Syd says, firmly. "If you want something to blame, blame my mutation. Because that's why I couldn't touch, that's why she--"

When Syd doesn't continue, Ptonomy leans forward. "Finish that sentence. You can say it aloud or you can write it down, your choice. But you have to finish it."

"No," Syd says, shaking her head.

"You have to," Ptonomy says, just as firmly. "Or are you waiting for Farouk to leave you another music box?"

"God, I hate him," Syd says, tightly. 

Ptonomy stares, waiting.

Syd's mother did everything she could for her. She protected her and cared for her and clothed and fed her. When Syd got into fights, her mother talked to the principal or the cops and sorted things out. When Syd was taken to the hospital and tied down and drugged for her violence and instability, her mother sat by her bed and yelled at the doctors until they let her go. Her mother protected her until she died, and when she was gone Syd ended up in Clockworks where she couldn't even protect herself.

But her mother never loved her. She couldn't love her because Syd couldn't be touched. And not being able to touch-- That hurt her mother every single day, just like it hurt David every single day. Syd saw it in their eyes, in their hesitation, in the way they reached out and then pulled back, wounded. Syd hurts everyone who gets close to her. That's why she doesn't let anyone get close.

She holds the truth where she has to see it and before she can't hold it anymore, she writes: _I'm not capable of love. I don't deserve love._

She breathes out and puts down the pen.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "Let's look at your foundation again."

Syd looks at it, her list of truths. Eight absolute facts she's believed as long as she can remember.

But they're not all true. They can't be. And if she's going to get better, she needs to cut out the truths that are hurting her and replace them. She has to acknowledge the ones that aren't even truths but are lies she's told herself to hide the truths that hurt too much to face.

She crosses out _Love makes me weak_. It wasn't true for David and it isn't true for her. Even though it pains her, she crosses out _I don't need help_ and writes next to it: _I need help_.

"Excellent," Ptonomy says. "Now tell me your foundation."

“Pain makes us strong,” Syd reads aloud “Life is war and I have to survive." She pauses. "I need help. I'm a victim. I'm-- I'm not capable of love and I don't deserve it."

Those last four truths are hard to say and hard to accept. But she can't deny them.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "I think that's enough for this session. I want you to think about your foundation today. I want you to sit with those ideas and really think about why you believe them, and why you believed the ideas you just rejected. I want you to think about your relationship with your mother and do your best to look back at it from the perspective of the present. I can't show you your memories anymore but you don't need me to. You remember just fine. But try to remember them like they're happening now, not like they happened then. From the outside, not the inside."

Syd nods. 

"David's okay, by the way," Ptonomy says. "There's no memory bomb, at least not inside him. Do you want to go down and see him?"

Syd shakes her head. She feels too raw to face anyone right now. She can barely face herself.

"David needs some time alone, too," Ptonomy says. "How about we wait up here together for a bit? It's good, being outside, even if it is just an illusion. We need the truth, but we can't survive without our illusions, either."

Syd's had enough of illusions. She has to survive; that truth is absolute no matter what. She once thought that David had to die for her to survive but that was Farouk's illusion. Now she knows the truth. But it's so hard keeping him alive. It's so hard sitting by while other people save him, while he struggles to save himself. She needs so much to save him but she can't. She's not capable of love and love is the only thing that can save him. And she never deserved his love to begin with. He thought she was too good for him, but he's the one who’s too good for her. She's the one who’s a monster.


	49. Day 9: So— How do we work?

David sits in a loveseat, a blanket around his shoulders, and looks at the printouts on the coffee table. There's no one sitting with him, not even Divad or Dvd. He asked to be alone after enduring them all swarming around him, poking and prodding him from without and within. He needed to be alone to think.

It's all very— Final, seeing it this way, printed out from a computer. Scans of his brain and of the activity inside it. There are things he lost that he’ll never get back. But he's here and he's not alone. Those parts of his mantra have never been more true.

Farouk didn't just rip out his memories, he ripped out the neurons that stored those memories. He actually gave David honest-to-god brain damage. Divad is healing it, but it's going to take time and the new neurons won't have the memories the old ones did. Whatever was taken out, there's no way to get it back.

They don't have a memory walker anymore, but they all looked inside him with every tool they have, poring over every inch of his body and mind. Whatever Farouk did with Past David's memories, he didn't hide them deep inside. He didn't do to David what he did to Amy, ripping out her soul and turning her into someone else, then hiding her inside herself. Past David's memories aren't hidden anywhere inside of David Haller. 

But Divad and Dvd are definitely inside him. They are absolutely other people inside him, thinking and talking with his brain, because he's looking at printouts of Cary's scans of them thinking and talking when David was doing neither, and a scan of himself thinking and talking while they were quiet, and it's— It's a lot to take in, the hard reality of that. He was already starting to accept that they're part of him, that the three of them are a system, but this is— Undeniable. Cold, hard reality. This is what he is, what his system is, his body. Their body. Their brain. It's not his, it's theirs, it has been since he became three people instead of one. He's three different people, three different brainwaves coexisting inside one mind and body.

Whoever David is, he is definitely here. He absolutely exists. There he is, right in front of himself, a squiggly line on a graph. He thought and said his foundation for the test, so this squiggly line is his foundation. David is David. He didn't deserve what happened to him, it wasn't his choice. David is love. David survived.

Or someone named David survived, anyway, because Past David is definitely no longer home.

He's not a complete blank slate. He has plenty of memories. He has the barely-real memories Farouk left behind for him and he has the mostly-real memories he's made since college, and he has the untouched, vivid memories he's made since Divad started healing his brain damage. And he has the memories Farouk didn't need to rip out because David made himself forget them. The worst memories, the most awful, terrible parts of his life that he couldn't even bear to remember as they happened. They're why he can't control his emotions but— He can't face them. Remembering them now, it would be too much.

So Past David is gone. He's gone for good. And the David that Farouk made, he doesn't want to be that David either. He doesn't want to be the monster's victim. He wants to be his own David and choose the life he wants to have. He wants to have the chance to figure out who he is.

Giving up on his past, on ever remembering— It's a relief, but— Once again, he's lost something he didn't even know he could have. He keeps losing things and now he has nothing left. He's just— A foundation. A handful of sentences he barely believes in. And he can't remember but everyone else can. Amy and Divad and Dvd can. Farouk can. His body remembers the trauma he can't bear to acknowledge and it will keep punishing him with it for the rest of his life.

He's loved and there’s no shame in love. He's strong enough to heal. That's the other half of his mantra. He wants to believe that, too, that he's strong. That it's possible to heal from such horrific trauma. That he's worth the work of healing and the love and pain of so many people. He's trying to believe it. He's trying.

"Okay if we join you?" Divad asks.

David nods. Divad and Dvd sit down on the sofa and look at the printouts. None of this is news to them. They've known all of this for a long time. 

"It's still pretty cool," Dvd says, and leans over his printout. "It's like having a picture of each of us. Family photos. We've had plenty of pictures of our body, but—" He shrugs. "This is us."

"Our system," Divad agrees. " _Our_ system, David. You don't have to remember anything to be our brother. You've always been our brother and you always will be."

David gives them a suspicious look. "Am I dying or something? Did Cary find a brain tumor? Because you're both being unusually—"

"We talked some stuff out," Dvd admits. "Actually talked instead of shouting. It's been a long time since we did that. But we're— Trying. Like you are. We're trying to be more than just— Who we were."

"Our whole system has been traumatized," Divad says. "Our system should get better together. We should be— Three brothers instead of three pieces. A new system for our new life together. How does that sound?"

"Really nice," David admits. He meets their eyes. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

"We should have told you about the bedroom," Divad says. "We should have told you a lot of things. I guess— We were waiting for Past David. But you've always been right here."

"It was our fault, too," Dvd adds. "But we're gonna fix it. What do you want to know?"

"Um." David tries to think. He's still feeling shocky. He's getting really familiar with that feeling. "You're always saying 'that's not how we work.' So— How do we work?"

"We share everything," Dvd says. "Our body, our powers."

"We don't all have the same powers," Divad explains. "And even when we do, they're different. We can hear each other's thoughts but you're the only one who can read other minds."

"We're both telekinetic," Dvd says, proudly. "Divad can't control things outside of us, but he can control our body."

"You're the only one who can make white rooms," Divad says. "You can make things in the real world and the astral plane. We can make things too, but only projections. That's how you can see us. We're mental projections, not hallucinations."

David stares at them. He reaches up and touches the crown. "Has it been broken all this time?"

"We wish," Dvd sighs. "No, it stops us from using our powers outside of our body." He hesitates. "Our powers still work inside our body. That's how you can see us and Divad can regulate your emotions. That's why— We can guard our thoughts from you, but not other mind readers."

David has to take a moment. "I thought— I made you hear my thoughts."

"Not exactly," Divad admits. "David, the monster— He broke you open. You can't guard your thoughts at all, from anyone."

"No," David insists. "I blocked Farouk from reading my mind, for the plan."

"I did that," Dvd admits. "I've been protecting you since we got you back. You couldn't have kept us out of our body yesterday, either. I keep things out. I keep Farouk from getting back in."

David's eyes widen even more. "Farouk's trying to get back inside me?!"

"Of course he is," Dvd says. Divad elbows him in the side but Dvd ignores him. "We're not a defenseless baby anymore. He doesn't have a chance."

Divad gives up on trying to shut Dvd up. "We're safe, David," Divad assures him. "Dvd's really strong. He's so strong that the monster couldn't stop him from breaking through to protect us. Now that the monster is outside, he can't get back in. We promise."

"If your friends would just take this stupid crown off, he wouldn't be able to read our minds either," Dvd grumbles. He hesitates, then: "It's not keeping us alive, not really. Our inside powers still work. We're alive because we don't want our system to die. Though I guess it is keeping us from ending the world."

"Not that we're going to end the world," Divad assures him. 

"Okay," David says, not entirely sure how much of this he's absorbing. Inside powers and outside powers. Okay. He can understand that. The inside powers work but not the outside ones. Dvd's protecting their body and Divad is healing it. Most of David's powers are outside powers, so— That's why he thought the crown stopped him from doing anything. That's why he thought everything else was just— His imagination. Hallucinations. Because he thought he was hallucinating Divad and Dvd, so— It made sense.

"By George, I think he's got it," Divad says to Dvd. 

"You're projections," David says. Somehow that's what he can't get over. They're not hallucinations, they're projections. Like— astral projections, but— Mental. That's why it felt like astral projecting. Because they're all projections when they're not inside their body. He didn't become a hallucination when he left his body. He actually left his body.

"Sort of," Dvd says. "We can't leave with the crown on, but we can— Stretch."

"We figured it all out on our own," Divad says. "There hasn't been anyone to ask. Our parents helped some, but they didn't have powers. Maybe Oliver can explain it."

"Our parents taught us how to use our powers?" David asks, astonished.

"They had a book," Divad says. "Whoever brought us must have given it to them. We used it to learn how to control our powers and keep them secret."

"There's a book?" David asks, his voice shifting higher with each question. He turns to the others, sitting around the table. "Amy, there's a book?"

"Amy didn't know about the book," Divad says, but Amy's already coming over. The relay is on so she must have heard all of that.

"Maybe it's still back at the house," Amy says. "I never went through Dad's things. I kept meaning to get the house ready to sell, but— I'm glad I didn't. When all this is over, we can go there together, see if we can find the book. If that came with you, maybe there's something else."

David nods. There was a book. He wasn't just— Dumped. Unwanted. They had to hide him to keep him safe from Division 3. They gave David's adoptive parents a book because they knew he was a mutant, they knew he would need help to stay safe. They couldn't keep him but they did the best they could to protect him.

They loved him. His parents loved him. All his parents loved him and tried to keep him safe.

"Oh, David," Amy says, her Vermillion sitting down beside him and pulling him into a hug. David's crying all over her android. He should really stop doing that. He might short it out.

"It's okay, it's waterproof," Amy says, fondly. 

David pulls back anyway, smiling and wiping his eyes. "Maybe we could— Your photo albums?" His parents loved him. He wants to be able to remember their faces. "We could ask Clark—"

"I already asked him," Amy says. "Cary, could you bring them over?"

Cary and Kerry bring over two boxes of photo albums. They put them on the coffee table and Amy takes one album and opens it.

There they are. The four of them all together. No, the six of them, because David's, what, seven years old in the photo? So he was already three people by then. He carefully pulls the photo out of the album and holds it. His parents are smiling at the camera, at him.

"The Haller family," he says, voice shaky as he smiles through his tears.

§

They look through more of the photos together, David and his sister and his brothers. And he's glad he asked to see them. It means so much, seeing them, seeing that there were good times despite all the bad. That there was real love despite the fear and horror hidden inside of David's body. That they were a family, all of them, visible or not.

But he doesn't remember any of it.

He remembers— fragments. Pieces. The quarter-truths he already remembered because Farouk wanted him to remember them. On some level, he'd hoped that seeing the photos would somehow— Resurrect the other memories, even though the scan on the table proves there's nothing left to resurrect. What's gone is gone.

He feels like— He's had his heart broken and healed and broken and— He doesn't know what to feel anymore. He's like his rocket lamp, shattered beyond repair but somehow still held together with packing tape and— Love. Hope, despite everything.

Amy knows when it gets to be too much. She can hear him thinking it. She closes the album and has Cary put the boxes away again.

"You don't have to remember," she tells him. "It's okay, David. I promise. My heart's broken, too, but— It's still okay. You're here with us. That's what's important."

"It doesn't feel like enough," David admits. But this is what he is. He has to accept what he is. 

"We'll make new memories together," Amy says. "Our family will make new memories. We'll make— A whole new album of memories."

"You can't even see them," David says, looking at Divad and Dvd.

"You can't see me right now," Amy says, and it's true. "But sometimes brothers and sisters are apart, and then they're back together again. We'll all be back together again and then we can take so many pictures, okay?"

That still feels so far away, but David nods, letting her believe for him.

"What happened to Mom?" David asks.

"Are you sure?" Amy asks.

David nods.

"She was always sick," Amy says. "Ever since she was a kid. She had pulmonary fibrosis. Idiopathic, they could never figure out what caused it. As she got older, it got worse, so— Dad got a job upstate, where the air was clean and there wouldn't be anything stressful. Well, except for us, but— She loved us so much, no matter how much trouble we were. As we got older, I had to help her more and more, especially with you. And then—" She falters, crying in the mainframe. "She died when you were twelve. You— We all took it really hard, but you were— You were so angry. You started getting into fights, getting in trouble. The doctors said— They told us to increase your medication. That your schizophrenia was getting worse. And we did, but—"

"But I didn't have schizophrenia," David finishes. 

"You didn't," Amy says, apologetic. "Divad? Dvd? What do you remember?"

Dvd shakes his head, too upset to answer, so Divad does. "When Mom was dying— There was a section in the book on mutant healing powers. And we thought— We had so many powers, maybe we could heal Mom. What was the point of having all our powers if we couldn’t save her? We couldn’t even save ourselves." His voice wavers and Dvd reaches out and holds his arm. "We couldn’t heal her. We had to stand there and watch as she—" He stops, unable to continue. 

"We were so angry," Dvd says, voice full of emotion. "We loved her so much. We thought— The monster stopped us from healing her."

"Did he?" David asks, horrified.

"Probably not," Divad admits. "I can heal our body but— We’ve never been able to heal anyone else. The book was full of powers we don’t have. We can’t memory walk or swap souls or manipulate magnetic fields."

"Magnetic fields?" David asks.

Dvd shrugs. "It was in the book. We tried, it didn’t work. If you ask me, magnetism is a hack. Telekinesis is way better."

David looks at the printouts on the table again, at the scan showing his actual brain damage. Those missing memories, they're a whole life he can't remember. They're his life. Because even if he can't remember these things, they still happened to him. There's photos of him and other people remember him being there. There are intact neurons in his brain that remember him being there. That's— Insane, that parts of him remember and he can't.

"It's torture," Dvd says. "Remembering and forgetting at the same time, it's torture."

David wants to remember and forget at the same time all by himself. "It is," he agrees. He wants to get as far away from his horrific past as he can, but— It's inside him, all of it. Even if Farouk took his hoard of memories with him when he left David's body, he left the scars behind. He left the fear and the trauma. He made David's system remember and forget, but he also made David remember and forget.

And he wants to remember his parents, his childhood— But he can't. He can't remember the good things as they truly happened. They’re just stories other people are telling him. He could look at photos of himself all day but he can't see himself inside them because he's not that person because the real memories are gone, but he is that person and— 

"Hey," Amy says, rubbing his back through the blanket. "You don't have to be anyone, okay? You don't have to remember anything."

"But I want to," David says, tightly. "I don't want to be— Nothing. This— Absence. It's—" Intolerable. Agonizing. Torture. 

It's torture. 

"I have to remember something," he decides. "If all I have left is the worst— I have to remember that."

"That's gonna be torture, too," Dvd says, upset. "Remembering what he did to you, how's that gonna help?"

"At least it'll be real," David says. "I forgot them so— They're mine, not his. I thought I needed a good memory for continuity but— I need a bad one. I need my worst memories. You have to help me get them back."

Divad and Dvd look to each other, then at David. They're not happy, but— 

"We'll talk to Ptonomy," Divad sighs.


	50. Day 9: You used to be ours and we were yours.

"Yes," Ptonomy says. "We do have a way to recover your worst memories. We absolutely can recover them."

"We can?" David asks, surprised to get such a simple response to his question. He'd thought it would be more complicated, more difficult to get his memories back.

"You already did it once," Ptonomy says, and points across the lab. "Cary helped you. Remember?"

David looks at the amplification tank. They hid the metal dome when they brought him here, but just with a dust cover. David snuck into the lab a lot once he figured out how to use the tank without Cary's help. Sometimes he still tastes the strawberry flavor at the back of his mouth. He probably shouldn’t have swallowed so much of the daiquiri. 

"The tank should even work with the crown on," Ptonomy continues. "Since we now know that your 'inside' powers are still working, we can amplify your ability to remember and break through your traumatic blocks. _But_ ," he says, and it's a very strong 'but.' "I absolutely will not allow you to do that until your system is sufficiently healed to face that kind of extreme trauma."

"But it's just my memory," David says. "They already remember, they're fine."

"Just because they remember what happened to your system doesn't mean they're fine," Ptonomy says. "They're just as traumatized as you, remember?"

"But they don't have to remember," David insists. "They can just-- Wait outside the tank."

"Let's talk about traumatic dissociative amnesia," Ptonomy says. "In fact, let's talk about your amnesia, period. As with the rest of the your trauma, your amnesia is complex. You not only forgot specific traumatic events, you also lost the memories around those traumatic events."

"So...?"

"So the usual way of recovering traumatic memories involves remembering the events that led up to that trauma," Ptonomy says. "That's key for reintegrating the memory and working through the trauma it contains. Each time we remember, we re-encode our memories, we relive them. With traumatic memories, the experience of remembering is so overwhelming that we feel compelled to interrupt it, to stop before it's done. That traps us in the moment of trauma. In fact, that's why you weren't able to fully remember what happened in the club."

David tenses up. "What do you mean?"

Ptonomy gives him a considering look. "You've used the jigsaw puzzle metaphor to represent your memories. What you should have is a full set of pieces, factory new. Instead, Farouk took away most of the pieces, and for the pieces you have left, you flipped them over so you can't see what's on them. Divad and Dvd, they're-- They're matching jigsaws, complete or complete enough. We need them to know the shape of the pieces we need to flip over. We need them to know what the puzzle looks like."

David looks at his brothers. "So you have to remember, too?"

Dvd nods. 

"Shit," David says, and rubs his face. "Okay, bad idea."

"It's not a bad idea," Ptonomy says. "You do need to remember at least one of your traumatic memories so you can have continuity, and preferably more for your recovery. But the three of you are not ready to face that kind of trauma, not individually or as a system. I think it will be extremely beneficial for the three of you to work through your trauma together, but that's a goal for your system recovery, not what will get you there."

"Then what will get us there?" David asks, feeling overwhelmed just talking about it. He's only just accepted that he's part of a system. He doesn't see how their system can recover if he can't remember. But apparently he can't remember until it recovers.

"Talking, for a start," Ptonomy says. "I'm really glad the three of you are finally talking to each other. You want to be brothers, but Divad and Dvd's old relationship with you was lost when Farouk took away your memories. Whatever happened to those, we have no way of getting them back. So the three of you need to get to know each other as you are now. And more than that, you need to be honest. Telling David the truth about your powers was a start, but you have to stop lying to him and to us."

"We tell you what you need to know," Divad says, defensively.

"If that was true, you would have told us about David's powers sooner, and his brain damage," Ptonomy counters. "Dvd would have told us that Farouk has been trying to get back into your system's body."

David tenses again. He was trying not to think about that.

"Yes, I noticed," Ptonomy says. "You're trying not to think about a lot of things. Like the fact that the crown isn't keeping you from killing yourself."

David swallows and looks away. 

"That must be scary," Ptonomy says, gently. "You were trusting the crown to keep you safe from yourself. So were we. But it didn't. You did that, David. You didn't want to die so you didn't kill yourself."

"I didn't know I could," David admits, his throat tight.

"But Dvd and Divad knew," Ptonomy says. "They lied because they didn't want you to die. They still don't want you to die. And you don't want them to die either. You don't want to hurt them, just like you don't want to hurt us. And I know you don't want to hurt yourself. Even if it's hard not to. You don't want to hurt yourself."

David shakes his head, agreeing.

Ptonomy gives him a moment to recover. David breathes and keeps breathing. Dvd and Divad are right here. He wishes he could touch them, but he can't. 

"You could," Ptonomy points out. "If you projected yourself out of your body, you could be with them, touch them."

“No,” David says, certain. “I can’t dissociate. I have to stay present.”

“Is it dissociating if you’re sitting here talking to me instead of talking to Kerry?”

“No, but—“

“It’s just the same,” Ptonomy says. “Being with your brothers, it’s just the same as being with your sister or your friends. We don’t expect you to be with everyone at once all the time. It’s hard to get to know anyone if you can’t be alone with them.”

David tries to accept that. 

“Are you afraid of being alone with them?” Ptonomy asks. 

“Of course not,” David defends, but he knows it’s a lie even before he finishes saying it. He looks at Dvd and Divad. They look— Less surprised than David expected them to be. But then they have been listening to his thoughts for— Forever. 

“Okay,” David says, strained. “Maybe I am— It’s been a lot to take in, all this— And I don’t— I don’t know— Anything. But you do. You know everything about everything and you don’t even trust me enough to tell me I can kill myself so yeah, maybe I’m not comfortable leaving my body to be alone with you. And I know, I know you’re why I’m even alive, I know we have this whole— Life together I can’t remember, but I can’t remember it and even staying alive is just— Really hard all the time. And you need me to remember, every time you look at me I see it and— I can’t. I can’t be him, he’s gone.”

He’s gone. The memories are gone. They’re really gone. And whatever’s left— It’s going to hurt so much to get it back. He needs it but he’s terrified and he can’t get who he was back at all unless he trusts the two people who won’t trust him with anything.

“We’re trying, okay?” Dvd says, upset. “It’s really hard for us too, all of it. You used to be ours and we were yours. We were all we had, we were everything for each other. We spent ten years trying to get you back and we finally did but you’re still—“ 

“I’m still gone,” David finishes for him. “I’m sorry, I wish— If there was any way to— To be who I was— I wish I could remember, but he took everything. Even what’s left, it’s only there because he knew it would be torture to get it back. That you’d be torturing me to make me do it and I’d be torturing you to help me and—“ He blinks, his vision blurred with tears. “And it’s torture to live without remembering. So either way, whether I remember or not, he gets what he wants. And I can’t even—“

He can’t escape any of it. He can’t kill himself even now that he knows he can. Sometimes it feels like there’s layers and layers of prisons around him, each forcing him smaller until he can barely breathe. 

“Okay,” Ptonomy says, calming him. “You’re here and you’re not alone, okay? We’re right here with you. Do you want Kerry right now?”

David feels utterly selfish, asking for her help all the time. But he nods anyway. She comes over and sits beside him and hugs him. 

“I’m here,” she soothes. “We love you and it’s okay to be scared.”

David hugs her so tightly. He wishes he could hide inside her, like Cary can. He wishes he’d ever been able to hide inside of anyone. He would never have come out again. He wishes he didn’t have to be himself. 

God, he wishes he could die. He knows it’s hurting Dvd and Divad to think that but he can’t help it. He wishes he could just— Lobotomize himself and make his thoughts stop. There’s barely anything left of his brain anyway. It’s a miracle he’s thinking at all. Except Farouk made sure he left the parts of him that think because if he couldn’t feel all of his suffering there’d be no point to him at all.

“You are more than just your pain,” Ptonomy says, firm but soothing. “You’re love, remember? You’re the love you have for Kerry and the love she has for you. Don’t let your fear and shame eat you alive. Don’t let the parasites win. Stay with us. Stay and let us love you and love us back. Try to love yourself. All you have to do is stay with us and try.”

The iron band of terror loosens from around David’s chest. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and pushes it out of himself. Kerry loves him. She’s hugging him because she loves him. He doesn’t deserve her but he loves her right back. 

“You’re doing so well,” Ptonomy soothes. “You’re so strong, to keep fighting through all of this. You’re the strongest person I know. We love you and we’re not going anywhere. We’re here with you and we’re all protecting you. Dvd, you’re protecting David, right?”

“Yeah,” Dvd says. “Yeah, I’m keeping us safe, our whole system is safe. And Divad’s keeping us safe, too.”

“Absolutely,” Divad declares. “I’m keeping you safe and helping you heal, but— You’re working so hard to heal yourself and that means a lot to us. We— Love you. You’re still our David. You’ve always been our David.”

David lets go of Kerry so he can turn and look at them. He can’t remember them ever— It’s always been shouting and— They said he didn’t have to remember before but— He does want to remember. 

“You don’t have to remember,” Divad insists. “You don’t have to— Hurt yourself for us. We saw the scan, too. We know. We’ve always known but— We didn’t want to stop hoping. But that hope— It's not worth it if it makes us lose you— After everything we’ve been through together.”

“I know you want him back,” David says, tiredly. “What if— Even if I remember— I don’t know how to be him?”

“You are him,” Dvd says. “You do— A hundred different things every day that prove how much you’re him. You even get absolutely terrified like he did. Like _you_ did. But—“ Dvd swallows. “You hugged us, not them. You let us make you better. You were ours. Can’t you be ours again? Can’t you—“ Tears run down his face. “Can’t you let us hold you?”

Dvd looks at him so imploringly, David’s heart aches for him. He can’t— He can’t say no to that. He can’t let his fear keep him from— The people he made from himself. The people who protected him and suffered with him and spent their whole lives with him, even though he can’t remember it. 

He lies back in the loveseat and closes his eyes, and then he opens them without opening them. He reaches out of himself and stands, physically light with relief from the freedom from his body, and sits down on the sofa next to Dvd. 

He pulls Dvd into his arms and holds him tight, just like he held Kerry. And Dvd holds him back just as tightly. Dvd cries, tight and nearly silent, holding David like he can’t ever bear to let him go again. Like David held Kerry, like he holds Amy. Dvd hugs just like Amy used to, before she died. 

“She taught all of us to hug,” Divad says, tightly. “She’s our big sister, too. We were afraid to tell her we were there, but we love her just as much as you. We’re your brothers, David. We’re your family. Please don’t be afraid of us.”

David looks past Dvd’s ear at Divad. Divad has been— Confusing. Dvd is straightforward, David understands his anger and the pain it hides. But Divad— He told David he didn’t deserve love. He yelled and then— He stopped yelling, but—

“You’re right,” Divad admits. “I’ve been— Suppressing my emotions. Erasing myself to make it easier to— Survive. I don’t want to hurt you anymore and— I don’t want to hurt— Our system. I could have— I control our body, David. It would be so easy for me to—“ Pain flashes across his face, briefly before it vanishes, suppressed. David recognizes it now that he knows. 

“Don’t,” David says. “Don’t— Erase yourself, please, I— I can’t get to know you if you take yourself away.”

“It’s too much to feel,” Divad says, and his eyes are full of pain no matter how much he’s suppressing. He isn’t crying but he looks at David with the same imploring eyes as Dvd. 

David pries himself from Dvd’s grip and moves to sit between them, between his brothers. He pulls Divad into a hug and then Dvd holds him again from behind and he’s— He feels—

He feels better, holding them, being held. They’re both holding on so tight and they hug him with everything they have, just like Amy hugs. Because Amy taught them how to hug. She taught all of them how to hug, she loved all of them together, even though she didn’t know. She’s their sister. They’re his brothers. 

He can’t be afraid of anyone who hugs like this. It seems— Ridiculous to be afraid of them now. They— They love him. And he wants to love them back. He wants to know them so he can know their love and share it with them. 

“This is how we work, too,” Dvd says, voice partly muffled by David’s shoulder. “This is how we make you better. You have to let us, you’re ours.”

It’s said with such— Petulant pleading that David can’t protest it. And if that’s true, they must have— A whole decade’s worth of pent-up hugs waiting for him. That sounds— It sounds really nice. He feels like he needs at least a decade’s worth of hugs. Multiple decades, so it’s just as well there’s two of them. It’s hard to feel guilty about— Hugging himself. Especially when his other selves clearly need to hold him as much as he needs to be held. 

“Is David okay?” Kerry asks, looking at his sleeping body with concern. “He just sorta— Turned off?“

“He’s with his brothers,” Ptonomy explains. “I think they might be a while. It’s okay, David’s feeling much better now. Let’s leave them to talk.”

“Ptonomy,” David calls, as Ptonomy stands to go. “Thank you.”

Ptonomy smiles. “Be with your brothers, David. We’ll be here when you get back.”


	51. Day 9: We made you into a passenger.

David didn’t know how much he needed to leave his body until he left it. Or he did know, but— He did his best not to think about it. But now, as a mental projection, all the pain is gone. The crown, the tension and everything else held inside his body: he only feels them faint and distant, like they aren’t his at all. 

“Is it safe for all of us to leave our body?” David asks, looking at it. Their body. He just looks like he’s napping, but— If Farouk is trying to get back in—

“We’re not really out of it,” Dvd reminds him. “Our body is safe because we’re still inside it.”

David doubts any part of him is safe anywhere, but that does at least give him one less thing to worry about. He looks at Dvd and Divad, sitting on either side of him, looking back at him. They’re both calmer after all the hugging but they look at him— Intensely. “So, um— I guess we should talk.”

“Yeah,” Divad says, but he doesn’t look pleased about it. 

Dvd keeps staring at him, almost— Hungry with need. 

Maybe Ptonomy should come back. 

“No,” Dvd says. “We don’t need a— Robot chaperone.” He looks away, looks back with slightly less intensity. “We’re making a new system together. As three separate people who are brothers.”

“Exactly,” Divad agrees. “And we do trust you and we want you to trust us. We want things to be— Equal. So— Ask us anything you want to know.”

What does he want to know? There’s so much he hardly knows where to start. But he doesn’t want to talk about the past when he can’t remember it and they shouldn’t have to. He wants— He wants to move forward with them, begin their new life and stop trying to salvage the old one. 

“We’re starting over,” David says. “So let’s— Start over.”

“Okay,” Divad agrees, but he looks uncertain and so does Dvd. 

David has the novel sensation of— Actually understanding their situation better than they do. He’s been working hard at building a whole new life for himself, a new identity from the ashes of his old one. Not in the DID sense, he’s still who he was in the desert, but— They need to build a new system from the ashes of the old one. A new identity for their identities. 

And it’s actually— He’s been the part of their system with the least power since he found out who they were, since he found out they’re a system. They’ve been in control of everything, in control of themselves and in control of his emotions and his body and he’s— Broken open, broken physical and emotionally and mentally and— He’s felt so— For all they’ve worked to keep him safe, it’s all made him feel completely vulnerable because he’s been so dependent on them, unable to defend himself from them, much less anyone else. 

Dvd and Divad both frown, upset by his thoughts, and David reminds himself that if they’re going to hear all his thoughts anyway, he needs to just say them aloud so he can acknowledge they’re being heard, too. 

“I know you didn’t mean to do any of that,” David says, not wanting to start off on the wrong foot. “It’s— You’ve done so much to protect me and I’m grateful for everything but—“ He glances at his body. Their body. “I’m not just— Your memory of him or— A part of our system. I’m a person, my own— I’m David, my David, and— If I need help, I need to be part of— Helping myself.”

That’s— No, say it aloud. “That’s what we did to Syd in the desert. It wasn’t wrong to help her but— It was wrong to not let her help herself. Even if she didn’t know she was sick— Forcing her to change, it— It was wrong, even if she—“ He runs out of words he can say aloud or even think. 

Dvd looks even more upset now. So does Divad. Neither of them says anything, they must be thinking but they won’t share their thoughts, they don’t have to. 

“I’m sorry,” David says, feeling guilty even though he knows he needs to say these things. They have to face the truth if they want to make things better. “I can’t— I know it hurts, but— It hurts to get better. Healing— Means ripping things open so they can heal the right way. If they can heal at all. I want us to be— I can’t be who you lost but— If you can— Accept me as I am now, if you can— Try, then— I can try to accept you. And we can— Try to make this work.” 

He breathes, waits, watching them. 

“We’re not just three people,” Dvd says, tightly. “We can’t— Exist separately. We’re parts of you. We share everything. If one of us does something, all of us do it. If one of us keeps us safe, that’s you keeping us safe.”

“But that’s—“ David stops, trying to understand. “Who I am now, I don’t know any of that. Even if you tell me, I can’t feel it the way you feel it. I was alone, I know it’s a lie but that’s what I remember. I remember being—“ So painfully alone and afraid and—

“We know,” Divad soothes. “We heard you. He wouldn’t let you hear us but we could still hear you.”

“I still can’t hear you,” David says, and it’s the truth. “You said I was torturing you just like he did, but— Aren’t you doing it, too?”

“It’s different,” Dvd insists. “We’ve always protected you from our thoughts. Sometimes that was the only thing we could do to—“ He cuts himself off. 

“To what?” David asks. “You said you’d tell me anything I want to know.”

“He said you could ask,” Dvd grumbles, nodding at Divad. “I didn’t.”

David frowns. “You just said whatever one of us does, all of us do. Or is that a lie? Ptonomy said you’ve been lying to me.”

“Ptonomy needs to mind his own business,” Dvd says. 

“We are his business,” David insists. “Helping us get better is why he’s here.”

Dvd doesn’t answer. David turns to Divad instead. “Okay, you tell me. Or were you lying, too?”

“It was the only way we had to protect you,” Divad admits, with visible reluctance. “You made us to protect you and we couldn’t. You made us to take care of you but we were just as— Helpless as you were. But he let us help you because that’s what he wanted. He wanted you to trust us and rely on us because that gave him more ways to hurt you. But we had to help you. You needed us, you needed us more and more and by the end—“ He swallows and forces himself to finish. “By the end you were— You didn’t have a choice. He broke you so badly you couldn’t— We had to be— So much of you. And we— God, we loved it because that was all we ever wanted. But the cost was— We made you into a passenger, someone we just— Carried around. We told ourselves we were— But it wasn’t your life anymore, it was ours. It was mine. It was my life. Dvd didn’t care about college, you were— But I did. I— I chose our major. Biology. I wanted us to go into med school so we could find a way to get the monster out of us. I learned about our body so I could fix it and make us better. But he knew that and he waited for me to build our life so it would hurt so much more when he took it all away. And he’s going to take everything away again, whatever we build that’s what he’s going to destroy, so—“ His face wracks with pain and terror before he suppresses himself into calm. 

“Divad,” David says, horrified but— More than any horror for himself, he feels— Compassion. To endure that— Farouk is so unspeakably cruel, to do that to them. It’s no wonder they’re— They must be terrified to hope for anything, to let their guard down at all, even to him, or— to any part of their system. They— “You don’t talk to each other,” he realizes. “I thought it was just me but— You’re alone, too, both of you. We’ve all been— Trapped alone with each other.”

“You’re right,” Divad admits. “We don’t have a system anymore. He destroyed it just like he destroyed— All of us. The only thing we have left is— Keeping you alive. And we can’t even do that.”

David holds Divad close, but Divad doesn’t hold him back. David pulls back and looks at him. Divad’s face is impassive; his eyes are dry, but David still sees the pain in them. “Please stop erasing yourself,” he pleads. “I know how— How awful it is to feel, but— Not feeling anything is awful, too. Dissociating or— Going numb. It’s just as much suicide as— You’re not allowed to kill yourself. Not for me. I won’t let you. You’re my brother and I want you to live. You can read my thoughts so you know I’m not lying, you know I mean every word. I’m staying alive for you so you have to stay alive for me. That’s— That’s the first part of our foundation. Our system’s foundation. I’ll write it down later but— We can start believing it now. Or trying to. I’ll believe it for you, okay?”

David suddenly realizes that Dvd is crying again. He turns to his brother and holds him, and Dvd holds him back. 

“And me?” Dvd asks, tightly. 

“I’ll believe it for you, too,” David promises. “It’s our foundation. For all three of us together. It’s— It’s a promise we’re making to ourselves. To our system.”

That’s what his foundation is. It’s the love of the people he loves, it’s a promise they share with him and each other. A promise to stay alive and protect each other and love each other, even when that feels impossible. As long as one of them believes it just a little, all of them can try to believe it. That love binding them together— That’s a kind of system, too. All systems are— They’re love. Systems are made of love. Just like— Just like the people inside them. 

“I love you,” David tells Dvd, because he’s finally able to believe it now. “We’re brothers and we’re part of each other and we love each other.”

Dvd holds him tighter. He makes a pained sound, like David’s words hurt him instead of comfort him. Maybe they’re doing both. 

‘You only love us now because of him.’

It’s been a while since David heard anyone’s thoughts but his own. But that’s Dvd’s voice in his head, pained and desperate. Dvd’s letting him hear his thoughts. 

“No,” David insists. “He can’t control us anymore. You’re keeping him out.”

‘He made you like this,’ Dvd thinks. ‘He made you trust and love so— You wouldn’t want us back unless he wanted that.’

“No,” Divad says, and David realizes Dvd let down his guard so they can both hear his thoughts. “He hates us. He’d never want David to trust us now.”

‘He knows us,’ Dvd’s thoughts insist. ‘He knows we need each other. He’s using us again.’

“He’s out,” Divad argues. “He made David trusting but he can’t control who he trusts. It’s not up to him, it’s up to us. You know that. You agreed we need help because you know we’re the ones who can make the torture stop.”

“How can we make it stop when everything is torture?” Dvd asks aloud, still holding tight to David. “Everything has always been torture. Even when we thought we were winning, he’s the one who won.”

“No,” David says, realizing. “Because if he could get back inside us, he would have. He can’t. You stopped him, we all— We got him out and he can’t get back in. We did that, all of us, our friends and our system. That’s— It’s our victory and we’re not letting the delusion take it away.”

Dvd finally pulls back. He looks at David, at Divad, at their body. “Yeah. The shit beetle lost. We’re stronger than him.”

“We are,” David says. It’s hard to believe, but each of them believes it a little and that makes it easier. “He didn’t want to leave our body. He had— He was finally the one in charge of it, he had everything he wanted, of course he didn’t want to give that up. But Cary made the halo and— He had to leave or we were going to kill him. He had to leave. And Oliver was right there, so— He stole him and ran. And he has his body back now but that’s not enough, it can’t be enough or he wouldn’t be trying to get back inside us, he wouldn’t be— Stuck here, watching us. He’d be— In the south of France, lying on a beach. He could have done that from inside Oliver, he controlled Oliver from the start, he didn’t even need his body back, he didn’t need any of that.”

David leans back against the sofa, stunned by his own realization. He’s felt— So inescapably fucked. And so have Dvd and Divad; even though they’ve been able to protect their system, they remember the bad things, they felt even worse, even more trapped, despite the false fronts they put up on his behalf. But they’re not trapped. Not just because they can kill themselves if they want to, but because they can choose not to. Because they can choose to live, to change, to open up to each other after a lifetime of silent pain. 

It’s— It’s not easy, any of it. Choosing to live is torture in its own right. But it’s not torture because of Farouk. It is, but— It isn’t. Because he might have forced David to stay alive, but he didn’t force him to live. David chose to live. He chose to get better, with a lot of help and love from his friends and his system. And they’ve all been choosing to get better, too. Because they can choose. No one can stop them from choosing, not even Farouk.

He can take some of their choices away, he can narrow them down to one, but— One choice is still a choice. They’re the ones who make it. If they didn’t, Farouk would have to— Make them his puppets, like Amy was in the fantasy Clockworks. Farouk couldn’t trick Amy into being intentionally cruel so he had to make her a puppet. But they’re not puppets and their minds are their own. 

Their mind is their own. Their body is their own. Farouk can’t get back inside. He lost and he keeps losing, and that means they keep winning. That means they can keep winning. 

Divad and Dvd are staring at him intensely again, but this time it’s— It’s not like they’re hungry for something that isn’t there, but— For the thoughts that are there. Like— They want so much to believe his words, his hope, but— But they can’t because there’s a delusion stopping them from accepting them. The delusion that they were tortured because they deserved to be tortured. That the world’s cruelty was a punishment, not just— A thing that happened to them. Because that’s what David believes and they’re parts of him. They believed the same things he believed, when he made them. And they've never—

No one knew they were there. No one ever helped them the way David's friends have helped him. Even though— They deserve love. They never deserved to suffer. They never deserved to be— Hurt by the people they trusted. Cut off from the world. Taken away from everything they knew and— Shoved into an abusive mental hospital with a monster in their head. 

“You didn’t deserve it,” David tells them, tells himself. “We didn’t— None of us deserved it. Our system didn’t deserve it. If you can believe that for me— You can believe it for yourselves. For all of us. Because— we’re a system. We can’t stop being a system, even when— The monster in our head did everything he could to break us apart. He couldn’t break us apart. We’re still here. We survived.”

He takes Dvd and Divad’s hands, one of each, like he held Kerry and Cary’s hands. “You’ve both done so much for me. I want us to be strong enough so I can remember us. I want us to build our new system together, to— Get better together. We’ve all been— Traumatized. But we didn’t deserve to be tortured and— I won’t let him torture us again. I can’t protect our body or our mind but— I want to— Help our system— Love itself. I want us all to be part of the world. Even if we’re inside, we’re still part of the world.”

David looks at his sleeping body, at his friends scattered around the lab. Ptonomy said it isn’t dissociating if he’s with his brothers. He said it’s hard to get to know anyone if you can’t be alone with them. 

“I want us to try something,” David says, deciding. “I want— One of you to be in our body and stay with our friends. And I’ll stay with the other and get to know him better. And then you can switch.”

“David, no,” Divad protests. “You need to be with your friends. The only reason you’ve recovered this much is because of them.”

“I am with them,” David says. “I can hear them even if they can’t hear me, and we have the relay. We’ll— Take turns. If we share everything, if we should all be part of the world, then— We need to share our body.”

Both Divad and Dvd look very torn. David had expected them to embrace the idea. They’ll get to be together and they’ll get to be in their body. “What’s wrong?”

Neither answers at first. 

“They’re not our friends,” Dvd says. 

“You’ve been with them before, when I was— Catatonic.” Not ‘away’, that’s a child’s understanding and David is ready to face his past from the perspective of the present. He was catatonic or in some kind of deep dissociative state. 

“We were covering for you,” Dvd says.

“They knew you weren’t me.”

“It was still covering,” Dvd insists. “We share our body together. We don’t— Take it for ourselves.”

“You took it to meet Kerry,” David says. 

“I took it to get the crown off our head and save our life,” Dvd says. “That’s what I do because I have to. Because you’re— Scared or hurt or— I do it to protect you. Not to— Steal your life.”

Dvd glares at Divad. 

“I didn’t steal David’s life,” Divad defends. 

“You already admitted it!”

Divad huffs. “So you take our body and I’ll stay with David. You have a turn. Or are you afraid of it?”

Dvd glares at Divad again, but this time he’s the defensive one. 

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Dvd declares. “It’s just— Wrong, being alone in there. We’re supposed to be together. That’s how we work.”

“We can’t,” Divad says. “You know we can’t.”

They both look at David, and David remembers what happened the last time Divad tried to share their body with him. It was a spectacular disaster. They could try again, but— Even the thought is enough to make him tense up. 

“Ugh, _fine_ ,” Dvd relents. He narrows his eyes, looks at Divad and their friends like he’s assessing a battlefield. “I get David first,” he declares. “You like being in charge so much, you’re in charge.” He smirks, satisfied. 

“Fine,” Divad relents. “And then we swap. And then David goes back.”

“Fine,” Dvd agrees. 

“Great,” David says, brightly. He feels vaguely like a child being shared by two estranged parents. But he’s feeling positive for once so that’s how he’s staying. If he has to be positive for his whole system, that’s what he’s going to do. "Ptonomy, did you get all that?"

Ptonomy turns in his chair. "I did. I think it's an excellent idea. Everyone wants to get to know your brothers better. And Divad and Dvd can have their sessions with me while they're in your system's body."

Divad and Dvd both glare at Ptonomy for that, but they don't protest.

Divad stands, sighs, and walks over to their body. He sits down over it and leans back, vanishing into it. Their body opens its eyes. Divad winces, then visibly calms himself of whatever emotions he's suppressing.

"Divad, come join us," Amy says, motioning to an empty chair at the table.

"David," Ptonomy says. "You're doing an amazing job helping your brothers. But don't push yourself too hard. You might be ahead of them but you're recovering from a lot more than they are. I don't want you to set yourself back. If you need a break or to be back in your system's body, just say so. I'm sure your brothers will understand. Remember, this isn't a rescue mission. No one's in danger."

Not any more than usual, David supposes. Honestly, he's already tired, even without having to endure his body. This was-- A lot. Helping other people get better is almost as much work as getting better. And he’s doing both at once. 

"Then how about you and Dvd play some cards?" Ptonomy suggests. "Double solitaire?"

"Yeah," Dvd says, liking the idea. "We used to play together all the time. I'll teach you."

David relaxes. Dvd relaxes too, mirroring him, and they both smile at each other. Dvd makes two packs of cards and they each start shuffling.


	52. Day 9: Therapy is not helpful for minimizing their stress.

Divad’s head hurts. 

Their body has gotten worse since Divad was last in it. It's an absolute mess and not just because of the low, constant pain from the crown. But Divad knows how to fix it. He can finally fix it now that the monster is gone.

The emotional shock David keeps experiencing is an acute stress reaction. Extreme fear, stress, pain -- David endures all of it by dissociating from their body, by dissociating from his stressful thoughts. But their body still goes through all the physiological responses: alarm, resistance, exhaustion. He's been through that cycle so many times, it's a testament to his strength that he's still working so hard, but their body can't dissociate from itself. It can't escape by projecting out of itself. There's a physical cost to David's therapy, real and unavoidable. Divad's been doing what he can to manage it, to heal it, but David's been through so much so fast it's been impossible to keep up.

But Divad's the one in their body now. He's the one in charge. That means he can heal their body without having to hold back to avoid upsetting David. He can heal himself and their body together. He just has to keep things calm and not induce any more stress. Minimize neural firing, calm their noradrenergic activity, stabilize blood flow and get the epinephrine and norepinephrine surges out of their system.

More therapy will not minimize their stress.

"You've made your point clear," Ptonomy says, his voice in their head through the relay. "Would you like to discuss a stress management plan for your system's body? I think we could all use one, and we don't have your mutant emotional regulation."

Ptonomy doesn't have a body. Neither does Amy.

"True," Ptonomy admits. "But minds get stressed and tired, too. You and Dvd sleep even with your powers keeping you projected from your system's body. David's tired now."

Maybe David shouldn't be playing cards with Dvd. Maybe he should be resting in their body. But Divad can't make him sleep when he's not in their body.

"You still haven't talked to David about how you're managing his sleep," Ptonomy says.

They still haven't talked about what to do about the relay.

"You could have talked about it," Ptonomy says. "I'm sure David wants to talk about it. He wants you to be part of the world."

They wouldn't need the relay to be part of the world if they didn't have to wear the crown. It's not doing anything to stop them from killing their body. It never did.

"The Admiral is very unhappy about that," Ptonomy says. "He's unhappy that we can't rely on the crown to stop David from killing himself. He's even more unhappy that you continue to lie to David and to us. And so am I. And so is David, even though he tries not to think about it. He's dissociating from his feelings about that because he wants to help you."

This is sounding a lot like therapy, and therapy is not helpful for minimizing their stress.

"All right," Ptonomy says, backing off. "If you feel your system's body is the first priority, we'll trust you. But David wants you to be with us. He won't be happy if you spend your turn isolating yourself this way. Open your eyes and talk to us."

Divad opens their eyes. Amy's Vermillion smiles at him.

"Hey, Divad," Amy says. He hears her voice through her speaker instead of in their head. 

"We have to keep things calm," Divad tells her. David's stress over Amy has done a lot of damage already. Amy has done a lot of damage already.

Calm. He has to keep their body calm. He has to keep himself calm.

"We could go up to the garden?" Amy asks. "How far can mental projections stretch? Or-- I'm sure David and Dvd would enjoy being outside."

"Maybe later," Ptonomy says aloud. "It's taken a lot to get us this far. I don't want to disturb them now that they're finally bonding."

"I agree," Divad says. "David's plan-- It's a good idea, sharing. We should have been sharing all along. David doesn't have to deal with this alone."

"When David is ready, we'll help him with his possession trauma," Ptonomy says. "You'll be able to share again, but he has a lot of healing to do and he's not ready for that yet."

"Even if you're not in his body with him, he's not alone," Amy says. "He has you and Dvd and he has all of us. And so do you. We're here for you and Dvd. Just like David said-- We want to get to know you so we can love you. You deserve to be loved."

Divad can't allow himself to feel love, not without feeling everything else bound up with it. He barely allowed himself to feel David's love, and he only did that because denying it would have been wrong when David is obviously trying so very hard to love them, these strangers he's forced to share his life with.

"You were strangers," Ptonomy agrees. "But you're not anymore. The more time you spend with David, the more you share with him, the better your relationship will be. That's what will give you the love you all want to share."

Divad wants to believe that. He wants to believe in David's hope, even though David only barely believes in it himself, no matter how hard he tries to force himself. They've heard David force himself to believe a lot of things since college. They've heard him convince himself to trust a lot of people he shouldn't have trusted. It's-- Agonizing, to hear David doing the same thing for them now, forcing himself to accept the ideas his friends have put into his head, forcing himself to trust and love people he has no good reason to trust or love.

"You said it yourself," Ptonomy reminds him, through the relay this time. "Farouk made David trusting but he can't control who David trusts. Just because David wants to trust you doesn't mean that's wrong, no matter what mistakes you've made with him in the past. No matter what mistakes you make now. That trust is right as long as you do your best to make yourself worthy of it. And just because an idea isn't yours, that doesn't mean you shouldn't accept it. You wouldn't know how to fix your body if you didn't learn those ideas from someone else, from doctors and scientists and teachers. You chose to accept them."

David can't choose what he accepts.

"That's why I'm doing everything I can to make this a safe environment for David," Ptonomy says through the relay. "I've surrounded him with people that it's safe for him to trust, whose ideas will help him heal. We've all made mistakes but we're working hard to be better and David sees that, he wants that for himself. It's a positive feedback loop and you and Dvd are part of it, too. The more we help David and each other, the more he's able to help himself and us. That's what got him to the point where he's able to share your system's body, where he's recognizing his own mistakes without drowning in shame. That's what's keeping him alive, not the crown."

Divad does have to admit that it's working. This compassion, love therapy, it's-- It's helped David like nothing else ever has. Thinking back, as much as Divad allows himself to think back-- Love was always the one thing that kept David going. Love for Divad and Dvd, love for Amy and Mom and Dad. Even -- as much as Divad loathes it -- love for King. David loved King so much, so intensely; King was what helped him get through the very dark times before David made his brothers. Farouk-- It makes Divad furious to think about him, even while he's suppressing their fight-or-flight instincts and keeping his heart rate and blood pressure low. He's-- cognitively furious.

"Your whole system has a lot of anger," Ptonomy says aloud. "Not just Dvd, but David and you and your body."

"I told you, I can't think about that right now," Divad insists.

"I think you want to talk about it," Ptonomy replies. "You could have accepted our suggestions to help with stress management, but you don't want to suppress your feelings. You don't want to make yourself silent and invisible when you don't have to be. It's okay to be angry, to be upset, to be whatever emotions you're denying. This is a safe environment for your entire system, for every part of it. You can even be angry at me and Amy. You can be angry about the crown. You can be angry about your treatment here. You can be angry about Clockworks."

"That's enough," Divad says, too sharply. 

David looks over, concerned. "Divad?"

"Everything's fine," Divad assures him, calm again. "We're just talking."

David looks skeptical, but Dvd plays his turn, distracting him, and David lets himself be pulled back into the game. David always was easy to distract, long before the monster changed him.

"That's the dissociation," Ptonomy says. "He's dissociating constantly. That's how you and Dvd exist. That's how he manages the enormous physical and mental strain he's under and has been under his whole life. He'll need to accept his dissociation and learn to live with it, and also his other diagnoses and his powers and everything else in his life. That's the work: acceptance, compassion for ourselves and for the people around us. That's what therapy helps us achieve, if we let it."

"Point made," Divad says, annoyed.

"I hope so," Ptonomy says. "You have an incredible power. You can control your body on a level that most of us only dream about. But that kind of control can be just as damaging as the stress you're working so hard to avoid, because even if you heal the damage in your system's body, your trauma will keep causing damage, just like Dvd and David's will. If you don't deal with the source of your problems, you'll never be able to keep up with the physical cost of it. If you don't all heal your minds, your system's body will never heal."

Divad could heal their body a lot faster if Ptonomy would just leave them alone. But-- Dvd will be the one in charge soon and he's bound to make a mess of it again. And David has so much work he needs to do. Divad can't take their body for himself just to heal it. That's-- It's too much like what happened with college. He didn't mean to steal David's life. It just-- Happened.

"I remember those years," Amy says, gentle and sad. "David started doing so much better, I thought he was-- But that was you. Because-- David couldn't be in charge anymore. He was-- Too broken." Her voice catches, and inside the mainframe there are probably tears in her eyes. But the Vermillion doesn't show it.

Divad nods. "It was-- We'd always shared. I helped him face the world and Dvd kept us safe. The older we got, the more David needed me to cover for him. Until--" Regret and sorrow tighten their throat, their chest. "He didn't give up. He didn't go away. But-- School and work and-- The world was just-- Too much. He let us decide and Dvd didn't care so-- I decided. I was-- The main identity of David Haller. Our body, our life-- I was in charge."

It's hard to admit it. Dvd's been furious with him about it for years. He blamed Divad for what happened and Divad blamed himself. If he hadn't stolen David's life, the monster wouldn't have stolen David. If Divad had done more to heal David instead of-- If he hadn't been selfish, if he'd just put David's needs first the way he's supposed to--

Amy reaches out and holds their system's hand with the Vermillion's hand. It's-- hard and cool to the touch, but-- Divad can feel the comfort Amy is trying to give him. 

"I'm sure you did everything you could," Amy says. "I did everything I could to help all three of you, but-- Sometimes we don't know how to help, so all we can do is-- Make a choice. You said you wanted to learn how to get the monster out, to heal David's-- Your system's body. You were trying to make the right decision for your system. And look at what you can do now. You're so powerful and you care so much, of course you would’ve found a way. We took David to so many doctors and no one could help because they didn't understand. But you did and-- And even now, you're helping David because you made that choice. Taking your system to college-- It was the right choice because now that Farouk is out, you really can help the way you always wanted to. Just-- Just like me."

Divad flinches at the comparison even though-- He thought Clockworks was the right decision, too. But by then he couldn't control their body, the monster wouldn't let him help, much less be in charge and fix things. The monster made him a helpless passenger in David's life, forced to watch as David made every wrong decision, trusted the wrong people and took drugs and stole for money and just-- Failed. David failed so completely and Divad had to watch him destroy their body and their life and he couldn't do anything to stop any of it.

And then they finally got David back and everything still went wrong. Divad made just as big a mess of things as David and Dvd. And David even said-- 

He stops the thought.

"Go on," Ptonomy urges. "We already know what he said, but you need to face it."

Divad swallows and tightens his grip on the Vermillion's hand.

David said what they've been doing to him, it's just like what they did to Syd.

How can David love them if that's what he thinks of them?

David can't love them, not-- He shouldn't love them. They're as bad as Benny, taking advantage of him, using him to get what they want and not caring that they're hurting him. They're as bad as Syd, making him do things he doesn't want to do, making him torture himself because he'll do anything they ask. They should never have come back. When the monster left, they should have stayed in the bedroom and left David alone.

"Leaving David alone wouldn't have helped him," Ptonomy says, gently. "That was our mistake, too. We believed the lie Farouk designed that David could survive on his own, that he didn't need help. In another life, that lie ended the world. It still might. This is your chance to face your mistakes and become a better person. You want to heal your whole system but your system can't heal on its own. You'll just be trapped in the same loops, hurting and healing and hurting, just like you were when the monster was inside you. That's one way he taught you how to be. Don't accept his ideas, don't trust the monster more than you trust yourself. Reject his ideas and choose better ones, ones that will help you the way your medical knowledge helps you. Fight the delusion that his actions were justified, that they were a punishment for your choices, for your system's choices. None of you had a choice about the monster. He invaded your body and chose to make you suffer. He did that, not you. Nothing you did made you deserve that."

"You didn't deserve the monster," Amy insists. "David loves you and you deserve that love. You deserve to build a new, healthy system together. You deserve to have brothers and a sister."

"You deserve to be your own main identity," Ptonomy adds. "To make choices for yourself and be your own person. You have the right to take care of yourself, to want things for yourself. Because you are a good person. You're strong. You've survived so much and you've done it while taking care of the people you love. You deserve to be proud of that. You don't have to do it alone because we care about you, too."

"I love you, Divad," Amy says, fondly. "You're my brother, you really are. I remember helping you with your exams and your college applications. I remember how happy you were when you got in. I helped you pack for school and drove you to your dorm and-- All of that was you. You used to call me and talk about your classes, how excited you were to learn. That wasn't David, that was you, Divad."

It was. It feels like so long ago and he didn't deserve that happiness, it was stolen from David, but-- It was his. David was happy to listen, happy to share Divad's happiness, but-- It was Divad's happiness, not David's. The grades he earned were for Divad Haller, not David Haller.

He's never-- He's never thought of himself that way. Divad Haller. He's always just been-- part of David Haller's system. Even when he was in charge, he was only covering for David, even as weeks turned into months turned into years. He was still only covering for David.

"We know who you are now," Ptonomy says. "We can see you. We know your name. We can hear you. You're not a prisoner and you're not a passenger. You're a person and we want to be with you. David wants to be with you. Let us see you. Let us be with you, all of you, not just the parts of you that you think are safe for us to see. If you hide so much of yourself, you're doing the same thing the monster did. Let all of yourself be seen and heard."

Divad can't keep their heart rate from rising, their stomach from pulling tight. "Those are-- Some good ideas," he admits, tightly. "But you don't understand. Some things need to stay hidden, forgotten, I--"

Divad strains not to think, but-- It's so hard not to think. Thinking was all he was good for, most of the time, when he couldn't do anything else. 

"You need to be honest," Ptonomy says, firmer now. "Not just with David and with us, but with yourself. Suppressing yourself like this-- You're pretending to be someone you're not. You're wearing a mask. That sounds like another one of the monster's ideas to me."

Divad tenses as horror makes his control over their body slip. Panic spikes in him and he crushes it back down.

"I'm not a monster," Divad insists, but he pulls his hand away from the Vermillion's grip. He doesn't deserve Amy's compassion, she has no idea who he really is.

"Then tell us," Amy says. "We know things were bad even before you became the main identity. The three of you were tortured all your lives. Farouk must have made you do-- Terrible things to each other. That's what he did to all of us. We'll understand."

"Dvd considers you a threat to David," Ptonomy says. "Not just for becoming your system's main identity for years. We know you've been abusive to David since your return, that you were abusive when you were younger, and that's why you've suppressed your anger. You don't want to hurt him anymore. But suppressing it won't make it go away. It's just like David's memories, everything you're feeling is still inside you, and if you keep ignoring it, it's going to force its way out of you whether you like it or not. And when that happens you're going to hurt yourself and you're going to hurt David. We know you don't want to do that."

Divad knows that, but-- If he lets himself feel, that will hurt David too. He doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to make their system worse, to set David back when he's finally getting better.

"You deserve to get better, too," Ptonomy says. "David needs you to get better so he can remember you."

"Maybe he shouldn't remember," Divad says, tightly. "He forgot for a reason."

"He forgot because he needed to forget to survive," Ptonomy says. "Now he needs to remember to survive. I know that keeping David alive is the most important thing to you. I know you want to get the crown off so it will stop hurting him and stop trapping you inside your body. But that can only happen when your system is stable. Suppressed emotions and suppressed memories are what make your system unstable."

Divad looks over to see David and Dvd both staring at them, game forgotten.

"No," Divad says, standing up, but there's nowhere to go. Even if he leaves the lab, he'll only bring David and Dvd with him. And Division 3 won't let them leave the building. They can't escape without their powers and he can't escape his system, not with the bedroom still gone. 

He's suppressing everything, he's keeping their body under control, but he still can't-- He's still-- Panicking. He's not the one who panics, he's not the one who freaks out because he can't handle a bad situation. He's not the one who blows up everything around them out of anger and fear. He can't blow anything up, he doesn't have telekinesis, but--

"Divad, it's okay," Amy says, standing up and walking the Vermillion towards him. It's probably meant to be comforting but Dvd's right, those creepy robots are not comforting. Amy steps back, hearing his thoughts, and that makes him feel worse in a lot of ways at once.

"Divad, who here can help you calm down?" Ptonomy asks. "David, could you--"

"No," Divad says, forcefully. "No, absolutely not. I take care of myself."

"You can't," Ptonomy says, plainly. "You're sick."

"No," Divad says again, and he knows what's to blame. It's their body doing this to him, making him feel this way. Well he's had enough, he's done. He steps out of it and it falls to the floor.

"Hey!" David protests. He rushes over and stops, crouching over his body along with Ptonomy and Amy. "Can you not just-- Dump our body like that? I trusted you with it."

"You trusted _me_?" Divad says, still furious. "How much shit have you put into our body, how many drugs and medications we didn't need, and you're mad because I let it fall?"

"Shut your face," Dvd says, immediately between them. "Get away from David and get away from our body. I can't believe I thought you could change."

"Stop this right now!" Ptonomy says, loudly and through the relay so none of them can ignore it. "Divad, was that enough of an example for you? You are not under control, no matter what you tell yourself. You are barely holding on. All of you are barely holding on. And before you can say anything, David, you can't force them to get better. You can't do all the work for your whole system no matter how much you want to. Just like Divad can't. And Dvd, I heard that thought."

"Fuck you, robot," Dvd says, sourly.

Ptonomy ignores that. "I know you're all in pain. I know this isn't easy for any of you. But lying to yourselves about your situation won't help you out of it. Hiding from your past won't make it go away. Ignoring your trauma won't make the pain stop. Divad, Dvd-- One of you two is going to get in your system's body and you're going to talk. No more excuses. Divad? Do you want to be the rational, logical one, or do you want to have an invisible sulk?"

Divad gives Ptonomy the finger. 

"He's giving you the finger," Dvd tells, then rounds on Divad again. "And you know what? That's fine by me because I'm gonna be the one who gets better first. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I was always stronger than you and now I have the chance to beat you at your own game." He gives Divad the finger and practically throws himself into their body.

"Mother-- FUCK!" Dvd yells, clutching their head. "God! You just had to let our body fall and hit our head! God! This stupid crown--" He gives a scream of frustration, then breathes deeply until he calms. He takes Ptonomy's hand and stands up. "Let's do this talking shit, I'm ready." He rounds on Divad. "And don't you dare hurt David again or I will END you!"

Divad seethes at him but doesn't rise to the bait. Calm, he has to be calm. His anger is fading now, but a wave of regret nearly makes him sick. This is like the prison cell all over again, like the desert. He just wants things to be under control but the harder he tries, the worse everything gets. He helped push David into a breakdown and came back and practically told him to kill himself, and the moment he tries to get better he blows up at David again. Just like he's always blown up at David.

David's staring at him, wanting to help him but at a loss for what to do and wary of getting snapped at again. He's thinking about how confusing Divad is, how it hurts when Divad yells at him and how it feeds the delusion inside of him. He's thinking about how he needs to fight the delusion so it doesn't eat him alive.

Divad did that to him. That's what he's done to David for-- God, for so long. He's never been able to stop himself even though he's always known how much it makes David hate himself more. He thought he could stop but he can't. He can't and David can't protect himself, he never could.

"I'm sorry," he tells David, even though it's as worthless an apology as every other apology he’s ever made to David. David steps towards him, but Divad steps back. "Don't," he warns. "Just-- Stay away from me. I'm not safe."


	53. Day 9: I’ve got plenty to be mad about, believe me.

Dvd is ready to get this therapy shit over and done with, but he has to sit and wait while Cary checks over their head and the crown. Dvd would be thrilled if it broke, it hurts like hell, but whatever. They can get it off when their system is stable and Dvd is very stable already, so this is gonna be a breeze. 

"Everything looks fine," Cary assures them, as Kerry dabs something around the metal embedded in their head. "But please don't do that again. That was very dangerous."

"That was Divad, not me," Dvd reminds him. He protects their body from danger, he doesn't stupidly drop it on the floor. Whatever, Divad will heal it when he gets over himself. Even if he’s sulking, he won’t pass up a chance to be in charge. 

"I'd like to do another scan," Cary tells Ptonomy. "Just to make sure."

"Can it wait until after Dvd's session?" Ptonomy asks. 

"I’d prefer to do it now, that was a nasty knock," Cary says.

“Forget it, I’m not letting you treat me like a lab rat,” Dvd insists. David puts up with that stuff, not him. 

“We all have to do things we don’t like on occasion, for our physical and mental health,” Cary says. “Don’t you care about your body’s condition?”

“Eh,” Dvd shrugs. “Being in charge isn’t my thing. Things break, they heal. As long as I can defend us, I don’t care.”

Cary doesn’t like that. "From now on, your body needs to be scanned regularly, regardless of who’s inside it. The crown was never intended to be a long-term solution. And I need to track the changes Divad is making, see how he's healing your mind. Looking at David from the inside and outside today was very helpful. I’d like us to continue working together."

“David, is that all right?” Ptonomy asks. “Divad?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” David says, tiredly. He’s curled up in one of the loveseats, looking dejected even though he’s trying not to be. He’s resigned to being Cary’s lab rat and barely thinks about it. Instead he thinks about how badly Divad’s session went and how much he hopes Dvd’s will go better. He just wants their system to get better. 

Divad doesn’t respond. Not aloud anyway. He must love the relay, he can finally reach the world without needing David or their body.

Dvd isn’t going to hold their breath, not for their whole system. He agreed to therapy in the first place because he thought that Divad wanted to stop hurting David. Obviously that failed. So the whole idea that Dvd was wrong to punish him, the idea was wrong, not the punishment. If anything Divad needs to be hurt more. But that’s exactly why he’s talking to Ptonomy now. Not to help Divad, but to crush him. Divad can’t hack it, as usual, but Dvd can take anything. He and David will get better and Divad will have to be the passenger and that will finally be the punishment he truly deserves. 

“Therapy as revenge, interesting,” Ptonomy says. 

“You got a problem with that?” Dvd challenges. 

“Not at all. If that’s what you need as motivation to get started, that’s fine. What’s important is that you’re here.”

Dvd looks across the room. Divad is sitting in a chair by David’s empty bed, facing away like a punished child. Good. He should be punishing himself for hurting David. Dvd feels bad for David, being stuck alone with Divad, trying not to be sad. All the more reason to get this therapy thing over with so David can be back in their body where he belongs. 

“It’s your body, too,” Ptonomy says. “You have just as much right to be inside it as David does.”

“It’s not mine, it’s ours,” Dvd says. Both his brothers should know that but David forgot and Divad is a selfish jerk. “You know what our system needs? It needs you to fix David so we can be together in here. We’re supposed to do everything together.”

“You don’t think you need to change?”

“I keep us safe,” Dvd says. “That’s what I’ve always done and that’s what I’ll always do.”

“That’s not what happened yesterday,” Ptonomy reminds him. “You tried to harass David into killing himself.”

“I made a mistake,” Dvd admits. He’s not like Divad, he can realize he did something wrong and just stop doing it. “I’m never making it again.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“That’s quite a promise,” Ptonomy says. “What if you can’t keep it? What if you do hurt David again? What if you can’t stop yourself? Anger can take control of us.”

“Oh, please.” Dvd rolls their eyes. “I don’t let anything control me. I use my anger, I thrive on it.”

“You’re proud of it?”

“It’s what makes me the strongest,” Dvd declares. “It’s how I keep us safe. And I’ve got plenty to be mad about, believe me.”

“You absolutely do,” Ptonomy agrees. “You know, it’s interesting how DID allows your system to compartmentalize. David barely acknowledges his anger at all, but you embrace it. It’s practically the only emotion you allow yourself to feel. But you do feel other emotions. You feel love for David. You feel sadness and grief at losing your old life together.”

Dvd shifts, uncomfortable. He doesn’t like thinking about that. 

“Why not?”

“Sadness is David’s thing, not mine. Sadness fucked David up but it’s not gonna get me.”

“Shame is what hurts David,” Ptonomy corrects. “Shame is a kind of anger. It’s self-contempt, a combination of disgust and anger. That anger makes David punish himself. Isn’t disgust also something you feel?”

“I don’t hate our system,” Dvd defends. “We’re not the problem, the world is the problem. It’s full of idiots like you who think they can help, and monsters like the shit beetle who just want to hurt us. That’s what’s disgusting.”

“Is that why you don’t want to be in the world?” Ptonomy asks. “Why you’re afraid to be alone in your system’s body?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“You know, you and Kerry are a lot alike,” Ptonomy says, thoughtful. “She also spent most of her life on the inside of her system. She coped with her fear of being outside by being defensive, by being strong and defiant and violent when necessary. But something happened that forced her to be in the world and instead of letting fear continue to control her, she’s opening herself up, connecting with people and the world. Putting aside her fear and anger helped her connect with David. They’re friends now and David relies on her, he trusts her and loves her, even though they haven’t been close for very long. They were strangers, just like you and David are strangers to each other. Now— They’re becoming family, along with Cary and Amy. That could be your family, too.”

“Family,” Dvd sneers, disgusted by the word. “You know what family does? They tell you you’re crazy and force you to do things you don’t want, things that hurt you. And then when they can’t handle you, they throw you away. Fuck Amy and fuck family.”

He looks at the Vermillion sitting across the table, but its face is impassive. Amy is just observing their session, apparently, not participating like she did with Divad. But she never knew him so that's just fine.

“But you still want to be brothers with David.”

He’s been trying to but— “You know what? You want honesty? This brother thing is bullshit. We’re not people, we’re not triplets. Divad and me, we’re parts of David and the only reason we exist is to protect David. Divad forgot that and we all paid the price. I don’t forget. If something hurts David, I make sure it doesn’t hurt him again. This idea that we should be in charge, that’s hurt him, that's a delusion. It’s David’s life and we share it with him. If you want us to be stable, that’s how we need to be. Divad needs to get over himself and stop trying to be in charge and David needs to let us share with him.”

“David can’t,” Ptonomy says, firmly. “If you try to force him, you’ll hurt him, just like Divad did. I know that’s frustrating for you but you have to accept it. Whatever you and David had before, however deeply David trusted you, that's gone. David’s memories of you are gone. Your old system is gone. David’s life experience is as an individual person, not as part of your system. He’s trying to accept your system but you need to meet him halfway. You each need to stand on your own so you can be a system together.”

“That’s stupid,” Dvd sneers. 

“That’s compromise. It’s also the healthiest option for all three of you. Divad and David both want to be able to live for themselves, to chose their own lives. That doesn’t mean they want to be alone. They both care for you despite your hostility and they want your system to be healthy. You all have to find ways to live with each other, to accept each other, to love each other as individuals and as a system. That relationship? That’s a family. That’s three brothers, deeply connected to each other but also individuals with the ability and the right to live for themselves."

"That's not what we are."

"That's always been what you are," Ptonomy counters. "You've always been three people. You've always had your own individual life experiences and memories and opinions. You think of David as if he's the original and you're just pieces of him. That hasn't been true for a long time. David was one person, now he's a system of three people. The David sitting over there, he's just as much a piece of himself as you are. That's a hard thing for us to accept, but that's how DID works. That's how the mind you share expresses itself. The fact that the David identity shares a name with your system's body creates the illusion that he's different from you, but he's an identity just like you and Divad. And to a degree that's how everyone works. What am I now if not an identity? The mainframe I'm inside contains multiple identities, multiple people. Amy and Lenny aren't mutants, they're not systems, but by sharing our lives we make a system. All relationships are systems. There is no one person who defines a relationship, even when it feels that way. Everyone in that relationship defines it and makes it work, for good or bad."

"You're upsetting David," Dvd warns. 

"David needs to hear this just as much as you do," Ptonomy says. "He already knows it but knowing and believing are two different things. He knows he's part of a system and he's trying to believe it, just like he's trying to love you. But he doesn't believe it and he doesn't love you because those things take time and they have to be experienced. The love you shared with David was based on your shared experiences, on the ways you cared for each other and helped each other survive. You still have those experiences but David doesn't. He can't love you back the way you want him to. He can't change himself to fit into the life you used to share. You don't have to believe that now, but you need to know it. You need to try to accept it and try to make it part of you. If you continue to deny it, you'll continue to hurt David. And you have been hurting him. Not just yesterday, but since you came back. You say you've never wanted to be the one in charge, but when you came back both you and Divad took charge of David. You tried to make him a part of you. I don't know all the things you've said to David, but I know you've encouraged him to be angry and self-isolating, to stop trusting the people around him and to hurt the people that hurt him. And if that's the way you are now, if that's the way you've always worked? That means you've always been hurting David. All those years you thought you were keeping him safe, that was you hurting him by cutting him off from his family, by cutting him off from the world. You didn't trust the world so you made sure David didn't trust it either. You didn't think you needed help so you made sure no one would help. David might trust too much now, but before Farouk changed him, you're the one who made sure he didn't trust anyone but you."

"Fuck you," Dvd says, tightly. He's so furious he wants to punch Ptonomy right across his stupid, smug robot face. "You don't know _shit_."

"If you don't believe me, let's ask David," Ptonomy says, calmly. "David, how does Dvd make you feel? How does it feel when Dvd tells you how you're supposed to be?"

David looks away, ashamed of his thoughts and trying not to have them, trying to dissociate from them so he doesn't hurt Dvd's feelings. So he doesn't make Dvd angry again.

"It doesn't matter what I want," David says, tightly, even as he thinks how uncomfortable he is and how much he wishes he could just be himself. 'None of this is up to me.' "I just want--" 'It doesn't matter what I want.' "We're a system, we have to get better." 'We're never going to get better, nothing's ever going to get better.'

It's painful to listen to, but it must be even more painful for David. Dvd knows how much pain David is in, how much pain their return has caused him. But Dvd has his anger to protect himself from it.

"Anger is a powerful emotion," Ptonomy says. "It's so loud it drowns everything else out. It dulls the pain, but like any drug it dulls everything else, too. You want to be David's brother, you want to fix things with Divad, you want to build a new, healthy relationship with your brothers. But anger drowns all of that out. It makes you sick. It traps you in the past and stops you from moving forward. It dulls your love and grief and empathy and all your other emotions and it makes you just as emotionally abusive to your system as Divad has been. Both of you have been hurting each other and David and yourselves. All of that has to stop. Divad can't repress his anger and you can't survive on it alone. And all that anger? The truth is, that's fear. You're all angry because you're afraid. You're absolutely terrified."

"Of course we're terrified!" Dvd snarls. "There was a monster in our head torturing us for decades and he's still torturing us and he wants to make us end the fucking world! And you idiots think-- You're so fucking stupid if you think you can stop it. I thought I could stop it, I thought I was strong, but it was a trick. It was all just another trick."

"What was?"

God, it's humiliating. "Saving our life," Dvd says, tightly. "I thought I broke through the monster's control to save us. But he let me do it. He _let_ me. He wanted me to do it. Fuck him, I should have let us die. I should have let us hang from that stupid cord until we were dead!"

"He couldn't control your body back then," Ptonomy points out. "For all his power, he was a prisoner of your body from the start. He might have gone inside of you to survive, but once he did that he was trapped. He couldn't get control and he couldn't get out on his own. That's why he had to rely on you and let you protect your system from itself, from Division 3, from anything that physically threatened it. That's why he had to trick David into giving up control. That's why he had to trick Syd into using her powers to pull him from your body. Tricks are all he has."

"Those are some powerful fucking tricks," Dvd says, resisting the urge to hope. Hope is just another kind of torture.

"They are," Ptonomy admits. "He's incredibly powerful and he has centuries of experience manipulating people. But he's not a god. Even with the crown you're more powerful than him. He can't control your system anymore, not from the inside, because you're keeping him out. You're doing that, Dvd. That's not a trick, that's you. That's you keeping your system safe."

"I can't do that without anger," Dvd says. "That's why I'm strong."

"I disagree," Ptonomy says. "Your powers derive from your genetic mutation. Your body was born with those powers. When David fractured, those powers were divided up just like everything else. Your system gave you the ability to defend it and the anger you needed to motivate you as a child, but you don't need that anger to survive anymore. Your love for David and your system is stronger than your anger."

"What love?" Dvd asks, strained. "David doesn't love me. Our system is gone. So tell me, what do I have left to love? What's keeping us alive besides anger?"

"David doesn't have to love you for you to love him. He doesn't even have to be alive. When Amy died he grieved for her out of love. You have to grieve, too. Even though Amy is still alive, even though David is still alive, the people they were have both died. If you want to start repairing your relationship with Divad, you should start there because you're both grieving even if it hurts too much to admit it. The David you knew died in college. He's never coming back."

Ptonomy says those words kindly, but they might as well be a knife flaying Dvd open, stabbing deep into his heart. "No," he says, fighting that grief with everything he has. "David just has to remember."

"The memories are gone," Ptonomy says. "You saw the scan. You know the secret Divad was hiding because he doesn't want to face the truth either. That physical damage is real and undeniable. The loss it represents is real and undeniable. Even if David remembers all his traumatic memories, he won't remember you helping him recover. He won't remember the good things you shared because they weren't traumatic. Farouk took those away and you have to grieve what you lost. You can grieve it together because all of you lost it. Divad lost it and David lost it. Your system lost it. Your system lost so much. You all need to grieve. Be angry, but be sad, let the pain out. Share that experience together. No one else can understand it the way the three of you can, even though each of you understands it differently."

Dvd looks at David, at Divad. They're both-- Barely holding on. They're both in so much pain. And so is Dvd and so is their body. Their body is overflowing with grief and anger and pain, so much that Divad can't hold it back, and it's too strong for Dvd to fight. They should all be bearing it together, inside their body together, but they can't. The shit beetle took that away from them just like he took David. Dvd's been holding on for years hoping that they'd get David back and--

David's never coming back. Not their David. He's dead. He's been dead for years. 

"Dvd," Divad says, walking up to him. "David can't share with you, but-- I can. Please, let me--"

"No," Dvd says, but without force. The grief is so overwhelming he can't even be angry. He can't be angry at Divad for hurting David because-- David is gone.

Tears start pouring out of their eyes.

"Oh, fuck this," Divad says, and walks into their body. And then he's there, right there, and being together like this, it's like they're holding each other with their whole body. Their grief doubles and they bend over the table, sobbing, heartbroken, barely able to breathe through the pain.

And Kerry comes over and she-- Holds their body. She holds it so tight. And Cary comes over and holds it too, and it helps, their touch. It doesn't do anything to stop the grief or calm their sobbing but it helps anyway. It helps like Amy used to help, before--

Before. When they were still-- Whole. Fractured but whole, the three of them; inseparable, strong with love and defiant against the monster. They'll never be whole again. David is gone. He's gone forever.

"David," Ptonomy calls, concerned. "David? David!" He reaches over and shakes their arm. "Where's David?"

Dvd turns their head to look and-- Their broken heart sinks. David is curled up in a tight ball. He's gone away again.


	54. Day 9: Doctor Busker’s gonna keep them safe.

Ptonomy's going over the recordings from today’s sessions again, listening to David’s thoughts for probably the hundredth time. Lenny didn't keep count, she didn't stick around to watch Ptonomy torture himself. The mainframe might not be her favorite place but it's certainly never dull. She’s had plenty to do, but she did it and now she's back and Ptonomy is still at it, going over the mainframe version of his memories like they’re going to change if he just watches them one more time. She knows that’s what he used to do when he was alive and their old habits didn’t die with their bodies. 

It sucks. They thought David had enough love in him to join his brothers in grieving their losses. But their grief was too much and the only people who could have caught it in time were the reason he freaked out in the first place. And the rest of them, relay and all, were so focused on helping the Davids that they didn’t realize David was riding the edge of a breakdown all through Dvd’s session. 

They really should know by now what the inside of David's head sounds like when he's having a breakdown. The problem is that his non-breakdown head doesn't sound much better.

"Aren't you the one who said not to love your mistakes?" Lenny asks. 

"We can't treat David if he keeps going away," Ptonomy says, tersely. "Sorry. This has been--"

"You've worked yourself and David into the ground," Lenny says. "You gotta blow off some steam before you end up like him and Division 3 has to find someone to give you therapy so you don't end the world."

"If the world survives we're all going to need therapy," Ptonomy says, but the recording stops playing. "David can't save anyone if he's catatonic."

"You know what I keep saying," Lenny says. She told Ptonomy, she told Amy, she told the Admiral. "Take off the crown and let the Davids take care of it." They took care of things in Clockworks, and that was despite Farouk being inside them and their need to stay undercover.

"The Admiral doesn't like the odds," Ptonomy reminds her back. "We need all of David functional to stop Farouk, not-- Two-thirds of him that can barely hold a conversation with each other. And you really should stop calling them that. They have names."

"It doesn't matter what I call them when you won't let me talk to them."

"I've been waiting for the right time to bring you in. David needed to focus on repairing his system, he didn’t need anything else to deal with. But we've hit a roadblock with that, just like we did with the memory work. And now we don't know how long it'll take for him to wake up." Ptonomy sighs. "Are the new androids ready?"

"Just tried mine out," Lenny says. It felt really good to have a body again, even if this one isn't really hers either. Division 3 might be a bunch of fascists but they know how to build an android. "Amy's is waiting for her. I bet that'll cheer David up."

"Once he's awake to see it," Ptonomy says, and sighs again. "You're right, I need a break. And you need to meet the Davids." He gives her a look. "Now you've got me doing it."

"Finally," Lenny says. "Take Amy with you when you go so she can stretch her new legs."

Ptonomy raises his eyebrows at her

"What, don't you trust me?"

"Lenny, you were arrested thirteen times. You spent years in a mental hospital and another year inside other people's heads. You're a drug addict."

"Can't be a junkie without a body," Lenny counters. "And you know what all that shit is? Fucking job experience. Who do you think kept David going in Clockworks, Amy? The orderlies? These other Davids will be a piece of cake. They like me-- Or at least they like me enough to use their mutant powers to scare the living shit out of some creeps."

"You pissed them off when you tried to lie to David," Ptonomy reminds her.

"They'll get over it. Compared to Amy and Syd I have zero baggage.”

“Zero baggage?” Ptonomy asks, disbelieving. “You were Farouk’s mask.”

“The Davids know that wasn’t me,” Lenny insists. “They asked me to save their life and I saved it. I'm not part of Division 3 or Summerland or the Hallers and I’m not an Amy bomb. David still thinks of Clockworks as one of the happiest parts of his life, which is fucking crazy but you know why he thinks that? Because of me. Yeah, Syd, blah blah rainbows and sunshine, but we survived that hellhole together. And so did the Davids. So take me off the fucking bench and let me in the game.”

"Okay," Ptonomy surrenders. "But remember, they're grieving. They need to grieve so they can move forward. And David might wake up at any moment."

"David needs me even more than the Davids," Lenny insists. "See my previous points. I helped with Farouk, now let me help with David. You guys keep breaking him. I said you were torturing him but you wouldn't listen. Maybe I can't put him back together but at least he never 'went away' under my watch."

"Then try not to break your streak," Ptonomy says. "If you need me--"

"Yeah, yeah," Lenny says, waving him away. "You're always watching. Now fuck off, I got work to do."

§

Nobody in that lab is in any shape for more surprises, so they get a big heads-up before Ptonomy gives the okay and leaves. Lenny affects a casual saunter, enjoying being able to casually saunter in a mostly real body, and walks inside.

She’s been watching through Division 3’s surveillance but she can see a lot more with the mostly-real eyes she has now. She sees Syd’s tight wariness and the upset she’s trying to hide. She sees Kerry and Cary’s wariness, too, both unsure of how to treat Lenny after only knowing her as a mask, a bomb, and a threatening Vermillion ghost. She sees Oliver, sitting in a meditation pose, focused on the relay. And she sees David. 

But that’s not David. That’s the Davids, Divad and Dvd, still sharing David’s body while the man himself dissociates beyond anyone’s reach, while curled up invisibly in a loveseat. Syd wrote David’s name on a piece of notebook paper and taped it to the cushion back so no one accidentally sits on him. She used her own notebook this time; there's hope for her yet.

The Davids are sitting in the opposite loveseat, looking absolutely miserable. They have a blanket around their shoulders and they’ve been working their way through a tissue box. 

“Yo,” Lenny says, and holds out the bag of candy. “Twizzler?”

The Davids look up at her. They look at the bag. They take a Twizzler and stare at it like it might contain an answer to one of the great mysteries of the universe, like why bad shit happens to good people. Lenny’s never figured that one out and she’s stared at a lot of Twizzlers. 

“David’s not supposed to have candy,” Kerry whispers to Cary, but not so quiet that everyone else can’t hear. 

“It’s fine,” Cary assures her. “In fact, how about we go get everyone a treat? Some hot chocolate, maybe.”

Lenny misses chocolate. She misses Twizzlers. No body means no drugs and no food. No pleasures of the flesh when she ain’t got no flesh. She was promised a real body at the end of all this and she’d better get it. 

The Loudermilks step out. Syd’s still hanging back, keeping to herself. Lenny feels a tiny bit bad for her. It sucks getting perspective on your life. But other things suck worse, like being dead twice over. 

The Davids take a bite of the Twizzler and chew, staring at the empty spot where David is. Lenny sits on the sofa and listens to them think. There’s a lot going on inside that head, as usual, even though her favorite part of that head isn’t thinking at all. 

Dvd and Divad. She should get used to their names. But when they stop being angry for five seconds, they sound so much like David it’s hard for her to keep them apart, other differences aside. She’s no therapist — she’s learned a lot from the mainframe but she not gonna pretend to be something she’s not — but she gets that deep down they’re all just— David thinking he’s someone else. That’s how Farouk thinks of them and he should know. 

It’s weird, knowing she was in there with them but didn’t know. It’s like they were stuck in their own drawers for ten years. Who knows how many souls Farouk has stolen over the centuries and shoved into drawers? She didn’t know about Melanie either. 

In a way, she’s almost glad she’s in the mainframe. It’s like being omniscient, like she’s the one with mutant powers that let her see everything and hear minds and guard her thoughts. She’s a hero now, too, salaried and everything. She’s never had a real job before. She worked her ass off on the streets but that didn’t come with benefits, just STDs. 

She misses her old body, but she totally fucked it over. She’s still ready to, like, get blasted and party for a month straight. But this whole experience is— An experience. Getting one over on Farouk felt a hell of a lot better than losing her head on vapor. She got a taste and now she wants more.

Lenny sticks her face into the Twizzler bag and takes a hit. She can’t eat but she can smell in glorious technicolor. She breathes in and moans. 

When she looks up, the Davids are staring at her. 

“Want more?” Lenny offers the bag. “I can’t eat. Sucks but—“ She shrugs. 

The Davids have a brief internal argument about her. Dvd’s still angry at her for lying to David. Divad is trying to be sensible. David was never very good at being angry or sensible before, in his thoughts or out loud. Because his angry and sensible thoughts were in drawers. Farouk’s drawers, his own drawers. Compartmentalized. 

The Davids decide to talk to her because they feel guilty about her being dead twice, because Ptonomy said she was safe, because they both want another Twizzler. David always cheered up for a Twizzler. 

She gives the bag a shake and they warily take out two. They eat them together, the two Twizzlers pressed together like they’re one. 

Lenny slumps back against the sofa and puts her feet on the coffee table. “So how’s he doing?”

The Davids shrug. “Might be a while.”

“Yeah, he was pretty upset,” Lenny agrees. “Really fucking upset.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping us feel better?”

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Lenny says. “David wouldn’t be ‘away’ if he was happy hearing all that.”

“Ptonomy tricked us,” the Davids grump, and take an angry bite. “If we’d been doing our jobs David would be fine.”

“Thought you didn’t like lies,” Lenny says. She gets glared at but David’s glares have always been adorable. She resists the urge to pat them on the head. “I was in there, too,” she says, pointing the bag at them. “Even before all this he was a disaster. But he’s our disaster.”

“He’s not our anything,” they say, their face briefly crumpling with grief. “David’s gone.”

“Yeah,” she admits. “Farouk killed him. It fucking sucks. We should, like, hold a wake. Buy a headstone. ‘David Haller, taken too soon.’”

The Davids glare at her again. “Stop mocking us.”

“I’m serious,” Lenny insists. “David’s out cold. You don’t want to grieve him in front of him, I get it. You don’t wanna kick the puppy again. So mourn him now. Hell, I died twice because of the shit beetle. I’m dead just like David. But I don’t have anyone to mourn me so I gotta mourn myself. I can’t even get drunk, that’s such bullshit. You should get drunk for me.”

The Davids look tempted. “We shouldn’t. The last thing David needs is a hangover.”

“So drink a lot of water. Hey, I know where we can get the good stuff.” She turns. “Hey Syd! You know that pity party you’re having?”

“Excuse me?” Syd says, affronted. 

“We’re gonna have an Irish wake for me and David,” Lenny tells her. “So go get us something Irish.”

§

Lenny does her due diligence. She's in charge and she can't get drunk anyway so she has to be the responsible one. She tells Ptonomy and Amy to take their time getting back and has Clark run interference to keep Cary and Kerry down in the cafeteria with their hot chocolate. This wake isn’t for them. Maybe Amy should be here for it, but Lenny doesn’t want that. Amy’s not one of them. Even if Farouk killed and tortured her, she’s not one of them.

Lenny tells Syd to pour her a glass of whiskey, too, just so she can savor the smell.

"A toast," Lenny says, raising her glass. "To Lenore Busker and David Haller. Taken too fucking soon."

Syd and the Davids raise their glasses and drink. Lenny takes a long sniff. At least she has a recent memory of being drunk on this stuff, and scent memories are the strongest. She could be like Ptonomy, living in the past until it feels more real than the present.

Eh, maybe not. That didn't work out so well for him, even aside from the insanity monster. Besides, she has a job to do, the same job she did for David and Syd in Clockworks. She has to make sure they survive this hellhole together. It turns out she didn't do it alone, but she's not doing it alone now either. She had a turn at being the invisible helper just like the Davids did, but now everyone can be seen. 

It'll take a while for the whiskey to kick in, so Lenny considers her patients. Lenny's watched all the therapy sessions, she knows why Syd's feeling like shit right now even though she can't hear her thoughts. But if Lenny's learned anything from all this, it's that sometimes you need to feel like shit. She spent most of her life trying not to feel like shit but that didn't work out so well for her either. 

Not that she's getting sucked into their therapy gangbang. She's done being anyone's patient. But she's not blind. She's not stupid. She's got the Davids blasting their thoughts at her, all their twisted-up and broken rationalizations. Divad and Dvd hate the way David does that, but they do it too. Lenny's starting to think everyone does even if they haven't been tortured. It's hard not to see her own broken thinking in theirs. It's hard not to want to be just a tiny bit better herself. But on her own terms, not anyone else's.

Lenny takes another deep sniff and remembers being alive. She remembers Syd stumbling into her cell, absolutely blasted and reeking of this same whiskey. Syd felt like shit then too. She'd just helped Division 3 force David into therapy. Farouk told her David wasn't real. That's still bullshit as far as Lenny's concerned. Nobody thought she was real for a long time. Her realness is still as uncertain as her status as alive or dead, but-- The David that thinks he's curled up on the loveseat is absolutely fucking real to her. That's her David no matter what he remembers. They both remember things that didn't happen. They remember her being his drug dealer and his drug buddy, even though that wasn't her. Who gives a shit if it happened? They remember it together so it happened to them. And if he could remember Benny for real, she wouldn't care. Sometimes in Clockworks David was so drugged up he barely recognized her, he barely remembered his own name. David was still David.

The Davids aren't ready to hear that. Their memories and David's memories don't match and that's what's torturing them. That's why David can't bear to exist for a while. He's forced to share his existence with two strangers who hurt him and shit, Lenny can barely stand to have roommates. He has every right to be really fucking upset about it. She was upset about Amy but at least it was Amy's body first. It's-- Almost like Farouk did the same thing to him, like David was the first draft. That's what the Davids think, that the monster ripped David out of his system and then put him back wrong.

Lenny really wishes she could drink because it makes her angry that anyone thinks David is wrong, especially himself. She gets why the Davids are upset. David's broken but so what? Everyone's broken. Life is cruel even without monsters making everything worse. David had a fucking monster in his head, he'll never be-- Whatever other people think he should be. Ptonomy knows that, Division 3 knows that now and they need to deal with it. David still can't face it. The Davids are trying, but they're not gonna get very far until they get this grieving shit over with.

Enough thinking. She has a job to do.

Syd's glass is almost empty so she tops it back up. The Davids only had half but she tops their glass up anyway.

"Doctor Busker's prescription," she tells them. "You know what whiskey is? It's a depressant but I like to think of it as staying-alive juice. Syd, you get that, we're old drinking buds. When it hurts to live you take your medicine and you stay alive."

The Davids give her a skeptical look. "I don't think it works that way," they say, and she knows it's Divad doing the talking now. She can hear him thinking about how David got high with Benny and how that didn't help him at all.

"Ptonomy's doing a good job," Lenny admits. "But David called it surgery without anaesthetic and he was right. I looked that up in the mainframe. Before anaesthesia, people would rather die than let some surgeon try to save them. It hurt that fucking much. People had to like, hold the patient down while they screamed in excruciating horrific pain for hours."

"Jesus," Syd says, disturbed, and takes a long sip. 

"Yeah," Lenny agrees. "That's what Ptonomy's been doing wrong with all of this. Farouk's the one holding everyone down and Ptonomy's wielding the knife, and you've got this whole support system trying to keep the patients alive. But you have to be awake for this or it won't work, so what this place needs is some fucking vices. That's why they were invented in the first place, to make life tolerable. That's why David dissociates, right? That's why he got high for what, three years straight?"

"We're not going to let you turn David back into a junkie," the Davids say, angrily. They put down their glass.

"Syd has a stiff drink once in a while, that doesn't make her an alcoholic," Lenny counters. "It doesn't have to be chemical. You know how much David loves those magazines. Kerry wouldn't call those nutritious, but fuck nutrition, this is survival. Let David have his waffles and cherry pie if that's what keeps him going. And you need something to keep going, too. That card game stuff? It's cute, it's a way for you to bond with David, but if you're going to survive you need something stronger. This place is a pressure cooker and if we don't blow off some steam, we're all gonna explode."

"You're right," Syd says. "David's been-- We've been trying to save his life but the pain is--"

"Excruciating and horrific," Lenny finished for her. "Take it from me, I've heard it. And not just from David." She looks at the Davids. "If you want to make the torture stop, drink."

The Davids look back, then sigh. They pick up their glass and take a sip. 

"That's more like it," Lenny says. "Drink your staying-alive juice so we can have this wake and survive it. Believe me, I'd take that whole bottle for myself if I could. Consider me the designated driver. Get completely fucking blasted so you can let out your damage before it blows you up and takes everyone else with it."

The Davids look at her, uncertain. 

“You know what?” Lenny says. “This whole thing is about leading by example, right? So I’m gonna go first even though I am way too sober for this.” Mourning herself. God, it’s such bullshit. But she has to. “The Lenny you knew in Clockworks? She’s fucking dead. She got— Teleported into a wall. Ass on one side, tits on the other. She was a junkie and an alcoholic and got arrested thirteen times for prostitution and generally being a piece of shit. But she was shit because life was shit to her. She got clean and kept her friend David alive.”

She can’t manage any more without crying and she needs to be drunk to cry. It’ll have to wait until she has a real body again. 

“You’d better drain those glasses fast,” Lenny warns, and watches angrily until they do. She fills them back up again and breathes over the bottle as if the fumes will somehow numb the pain. They don’t but— The pain passes anyway, dulling to a low ache. 

By now the whiskey should finally be starting to take the edge off for Syd and the Davids. Syd’s used to the stuff but she drank more first. She knows her own dosage. Lenny’s not sure how accurate her memories of David are, but she doesn’t remember him being a drinker. He took drugs that made him float away. Whiskey will bring him down. The Davids are gonna be the absolute sloppiest drunks, she can tell. Syd held herself together but no part of David can hold himself together even sober. 

That’s okay. Doctor Busker’s gonna keep them safe. 

"Syd, your turn," Lenny says. "You didn't die but you lost a David. You're never gonna get what you had with him back because that David is dead. He knows it and you know it. You're the strong one. So be strong and show these guys how to grieve."

Syd stares at her glass like the promise of relief it bears is the only thing getting her through. It probably is. Ptonomy might know how to cut people open and sew them back together, but he has a lot to learn about helping them survive their pain. Love's great but it only gets you so far.

"David was--" Syd takes a shaky breath and starts again. "My David was-- Sweet. Gentle. He loved making me smile. He was-- Fragile. He was so sick. I loved-- His joy. Even when he shouldn't have-- He loved me when-- I didn't feel loved by anyone. He listened and-- He never wanted to hurt me. He made me feel-- Seen. Known. Like-- I mattered, when the world told me I didn't matter. I wanted him to leave with me but-- He was too sick to leave. And when he left anyway, his sickness got worse until-- I killed him. I shot him and-- My David died."

She can't say anymore, even with tears falling silently from her eyes. She drinks fast, draining her glass before hurriedly filling it back up again. She sits back and lets the tears fall, breathing and staring down at her glass.

"Now tell us about your David," Lenny tells the Davids. "Tell us how he died and say how you want to remember him."

The Davids already look like they're going to fall apart and they haven't even started yet. Lenny and Syd, they're not Kerry and Cary, they're not-- easy to touch. They have baggage and complications. But if there's anything constant about all the Davids, all the different versions and pieces of him, it's that he needs to hold someone's hand. He needs the comfort of touch to survive.

Lenny reaches out and offers her hand, and the Davids take it. It doesn't matter that her body isn't human. Syd reaches out and they take hers too. Whatever issues the Davids have with Syd, they don't matter right now.

The Davids look at the seat opposite them, seeing David himself rather than the paper with his name on it. David isn't dead, he's very much alive and he'll come back to them like he did before. But he needs their help so he can stay.

The Davids are trying, but it's hard. They need help, too.

"You can do this," Lenny urges. "David needs us to deal with our shit so he can deal with his. He can't get better if we keep making him worse, dragging him backwards. David's ready to move on. We have to let go of who he was so we can move on with him."

"She's right," Syd says, and puts down her drink to wipes at her tears. "David wants to be with us, to love us. But he can't do that if we keep hurting him. If we love him, we have to-- Let him become who he wants to be. We have to let go of who he was."

The Davids start crying, breathing in harsh, tight sobs. They hold Syd and Lenny's hands tightly. 

'We waited so long,' Dvd thinks, mournfully. 'It's not fair.'

'We have to do this,' Divad thinks, determined. 'For David. For our system. Our new system.'

'I just want him back,' Dvd pleads.

'He's right here,' Divad tells him, gently. 'That's our David. But-- We can't see him, not until we stop looking for what isn't there.'

'It hurts so much.'

'Then we'll drink until it stops hurting,' Divad thinks. 'And we'll drink a lot of water and when David comes back we'll-- We won't make him feel-- Invisible. Like he's only-- His pain. He's not-- We're not just our pain. Our system is love, remember? That's what David wants for us. We have to do this for him.'

'For David,' Dvd agrees, his thoughts anguished.

"David--" the Davids begin. "Our David. He was-- Brave. Kind. He loved us-- So much. All he ever wanted for-- Us, all of us, was-- To be safe. He didn't want-- He never wanted anyone to suffer. He-- We were-- We--" They stop, struggling. "We would have done anything to save him. But he--" They stop again, barely able to speak. They take shuddering breaths until they can. "The monster-- Killed him. Ripped him away and-- Erased him. And he was-- Without us, he was so afraid, so-- Alone and-- Confused and-- He thought-- He couldn't--"

"Remember him the way you want to remember him," Lenny says.

The Davids give a wounded sob. "He was ours. We were his and he was ours. We survived together, so many awful-- We survived them together. We were everything to each other. He was the only thing that mattered. He needed us. We survived for him and he-- He survived for us. But he-- The monster-- He forgot us. We were supposed to-- But he forgot us."

"He wasn't strong enough," Syd says, with understanding.

The Davids shake their head. 

"We survived but he couldn't," Syd continues. "And it hurts so much, being left behind. We just want him back. But he's gone. Those Davids are gone. We can't punish him for-- Not being them. He didn't chose to leave us, he was taken. We can't punish him for coming back changed. What matters is that he came back. We could have lost-- All of him. But we didn't."

"We didn't," the Davids echo, calming. 

"But we can remember our Davids," Syd says, with a sad, bittersweet smile. "You can tell us all about yours. When my David was gone, I used to talk to Amy and-- She told me stories about her David. Tell us your stories. We'll drink and-- We'll listen, okay? And that-- That will keep him alive for us until-- He comes back. And when he does, we'll-- Love him as he is."

The Davids take a deep breath and let it out, the overwhelming pain receding like a tide. "Okay," they say, and they let go of Syd and Lenny's hands so they can drink.


	55. Day 9: The dose makes the poison.

Kerry's never had hot chocolate before and she's not sure she wants to. Cary likes it and he wouldn't encourage her to eat something bad for her, but it's full of sugar and she knows about how bad that stuff is for bodies now. She knows that cream soda is full of sugar, too, so she hasn't let herself have that for days, even though it's the only food she really likes. Cream soda is— Her waffles. She thought it was good for her but it wasn't. So hot chocolate can't be good for her either.

She might risk it anyway because Cary's drinking his, but she has another threat to deal with. Clark came in just after they placed their order and just sat himself down at their table without being invited, and Cary definitely doesn't like Clark and Kerry doesn't either. Apparently the lab is off-limits until Lenny says it's okay for them to come back. Kerry absolutely doesn't like that. Leaving David alone with Syd is obviously a terrible idea. Except it's not David inside him, it's Divad and Dvd, and Lenny's there, too.

Kerry doesn't know what to think about Lenny. Lenny shot those guys in the desert for her and she saved David's life, and that counts for a lot. It wasn't really her that forced Kerry to be outside, that tried to kill her in the fake Clockworks, that possessed her and made her hurt Cary's spleen. But if she was safe for David, Ptonomy would have let her come back to the lab days ago, like he did with Amy. And she tried to lie to David to trick him into making her a body, as if he could. And—

Whatever. Cary trusts Ptonomy and Ptonomy trusts Lenny. So Kerry's going to trust her, for now, assuming she doesn't make David's brothers worse. Right now the threat she has to deal with is Clark.

It's just like when Clark brought David his lamp. He came to deliver something and he delivered it, but he's sticking around anyway because he wants to talk about something else. And Cary is just like David was, wary about whatever words Clark wants to deliver. Kerry is tempted to kick Clark in the shins until he leaves. It worked with Dvd. And Clark deserves to be kicked in the shins for trying to help David kill himself with the genetic sculpting gun. He deserves to be punched in the face for that and maybe even stabbed in the heart twice. 

Clark's hot chocolate arrives and he stirs it, considering his hostile audience. The spoon clinks against the mug. He picks up the mug but the drink is too hot so he blows on it and then puts it back down.

"We need to discuss Melanie," Clark says. "I'm sorry but she's not going to wake up, any more than David is going to get back his memories."

"Oliver will find her," Cary insists.

"We also need to discuss Oliver," Clark says. "He's dedicated himself to assisting with David's recovery and we're grateful. But we have two brain-damaged mutants in that lab and it's time we talked long-term solutions."

"Oliver doesn't have brain damage," Cary insists.

"Have you checked?" Clark counters. "Because you missed it with David."

"David's MRI scans were never completed in Summerland," Cary says. "We knew something was wrong with his memories but we didn't know what."

"You scanned him when he came back."

"We were looking for the monk's infection. And there were other priorities, priorities that Division 3 insisted on."

Clark gives his hot chocolate another stir. "All the more reason to make their health our priority now. We support your plan to track David's physical recovery. We agree with you that Division 3 isn't able to provide the right kind of long-term supportive environment. We're a military organization, not a therapeutic one."

"I'm sure you'll be glad to get rid of us," Cary mutters, and sips from his mug.

"Actually, I won't, and neither will the Admiral. I know we've had our differences—"

Cary snorts.

"—But Division 3 is trying to be better. Isn't that why you came here in the first place?"

"That's what Melanie wanted. And now you want to, what, put her in care?"

"The Admiral wants to freeze her," Clark says. "Cryogenic suspension."

"No," Cary says, reflexively.

"The alternative is letting her body atrophy for months, possibly years. It worked for Oliver. The technology's come a long way in twenty years. It's very safe."

"Freezing Oliver didn't give him brain damage," Cary says, angry at the implication. 

"Have you checked?"

Cary huffs and leans back, rubs his face. "We didn't have time to check because you came in and tried to kill us. And then—" He sighs, frustrated, upset. "He was effectively in solitary confinement for twenty-one years, that would be enough to make anyone— And having Farouk in his head for a year can't have helped."

"Neither did being mentally tortured. And he was forced to help destroy the love of his life," Clark adds. "What was it Divad said? David's broken open. He forgets, he keeps secrets, but when something's wrong with him everyone knows something's wrong. Oliver's quiet but he doesn't even know what day it is. His powers still work but that's about it."

"He isn't some— Dementia patient," Cary says, sharply. 

"But he is sick," Clark counters. "He needs help."

"We need him for David's treatment," Cary insists. "Unless you want him to end the world."

"We're balancing a lot of concerns," Clark says. "The Admiral is trying to find the best way to avert a lot of terrible futures. If we let Oliver continue to search for Melanie while his issues go untreated, the next time he leaves the odds are high that he won't come back."

"He wants to help David."

"And if he's gone so long he forgets who David is?"

Cary looks distraught. Kerry takes his hand and he gives her a tiny smile in thanks.

"Look, I have a family," Clark says, plainly. "I put my life on the line because doing my job keeps them safe. We all have to do things we don't want to stop something worse from happening. You have a job to do, too. You have to start doing it. And if your personal issues are what's getting in the way of that, deal with your issues."

Cary frowns, thinking.

"I'll be in touch," Clark says. "We expect updates on both their conditions. Daily scans for David and a thorough baseline for Oliver. Find out what's wrong with him and we'll discuss the next steps."

"Fine," Cary agrees. "But we'll get Melanie back."

"Not without David's help," Clark says. "If you want to keep her body with you in the lab, help Oliver so he can help David. Help both of them with the tools you have. That's what all of us are doing. And if those tools aren't enough, accept your limitations and let us help Melanie so she doesn't come back to a body that's not worth living in."

Clark slides out, nods to Kerry, and then he's gone, his hot chocolate left behind.

Kerry turns to Cary. "Do you want me to punch him in the face? Because I want to punch him in the face."

Cary gives a strained laugh. "No, that's— While I appreciate the offer, I don't believe that would be wise."

Kerry looks through the windows at the hallway. Two Vermillion walk past but there's no one inside them. "Do we really have to freeze Melanie?"

"I don't know," Cary sighs. "But bodies— They need to have someone inside them. I've been taking care of Melanie's body but— If it takes too long to get her back, that won't be enough. That's why we had to freeze Oliver. But knowing what we know now—" He looks away, disturbed by something. "Clark's right. We don't know enough about what happened. We don't know what's truly wrong with Oliver and we can't help Melanie until we figure that out. I can't risk— Trapping her in an ice cube, too. That would be— Terribly cruel."

Cary stirs thoughtfully and takes a sip. He puts down his mug and finally notices that Kerry's is untouched. "You should drink it while it's still hot. Otherwise it would be called— Lukewarm chocolate." He smiles at his own joke.

"Clark didn't drink his," Kerry defends. Not that she trusts Clark, but he pays attention to threats, he knows things that even Cary doesn't know.

"He did that to make a point," Cary explains. "Eating with someone, sharing a meal, that's an intimate act. Clark— He was going through the motions of sharing with us to trick us into letting down our guard. But he didn't eat because he has no genuine intention of being our friend. It's a kind of— Tactical move."

"Sneaky," Kerry says, but files the idea away for later. She doesn't like Clark but she likes a good tactical move. Maybe she should start paying more attention to Clark, like she's paying more attention to Ptonomy. Ptonomy's the fashion guy, but Clark's the tactics guy. Though Ptonomy is also a tactics guy.

"That's why Clark didn't drink his," Cary says. "So why don't you want yours?"

"Because it's not in our meal plan," Kerry says, firmly. "You shouldn't've had it either. Sugar is poison, you showed me. You're already— You shouldn't eat poison."

Cary's amused by this, then he frowns. "Is that why you haven't had any cream soda for a while?"

Kerry nods. "It's stupid that it tastes good. Poison should taste bad so you know not to eat it."

"That would make things easier," Cary admits. "But you don't like how a lot of nutritious food tastes. Some healthy foods taste bad and some unhealthy foods taste good. It's not always that way, of course, but it's a problem many people have. Sweet things are— Quite delicious. But it's about— Moderation. It's okay to have treats sometimes, when we really want or need them. That's why they're treats. We just shouldn't have them every day or with every meal. It's a matter of dosage. Like any chemical, the dose makes the poison."

Now that Kerry understands. She knows all about dosages. "You should have just told me that in the first place," she says, rolling her eyes. She picks up the mug and sniffs it. It does smell— Okay. She takes a sip.

Wow. Hot chocolate is— Wow. It's even better than the cream soda! She didn't think anything could be better than that.

"Ah, ah, not so fast," Cary urges as she gulps it. He shakes his head in amusement. "At least you gave it time to cool down first."

Kerry finishes her mug and takes Clark's. If he's not going to have it, she's not going to let it go to waste.

"Kerry!" Cary chides, but he doesn't stop her. She does drink this one more slowly. It's still pretty hot.

Cary stirs what's left of his hot chocolate and gets his thinking face on. 

"I'm afraid Clark's right," he decides, after a while. "I have been— Remiss, in my duties. David and Oliver are our friends but they need more than just our support. Otherwise we're— Making the same mistakes we've already made with both of them. The same mistakes that made us overlook Melanie and Ptonomy when they needed help. Division 3 is— A much more dangerous environment than Summerland ever was. I didn't want to let this place change us, but— We need to adapt to our environment to survive."

"Okay," Kerry says, putting down her half-empty mug. "So how do we adapt?"

"Let's consider where we've failed," Cary says. "Division 3 is a physical and technological fortress, but that hasn't protected us from quite a number of threats. Our minds are vulnerable and so are our bodies. Let's set aside David and Oliver. They're our patients, we have to keep them safe, not the other way around. So what do we have?"

Kerry considers their assets. "You and me. Syd, Clark. Admiral Fukuyama and the Vermillion and everyone in the mainframe. Division 3's soldiers and scientists. The mainframe, the surveillance system, the lab, the armory."

"Good," Cary says. "And how have we been attacked?"

"Ptonomy was killed by an insanity creature. Those got into all of us." Kerry doesn't like thinking about the sensation of having the tiny insanity monster pulled out of her forehead. It was weird and creepy. "The monk snuck in with his victims. His mind couldn't be read and he had the virus and— Whatever he did to control the kids."

"More mental powers," Cary says. "We still don't know how the insanity creature got in, or even what it was. The best I've been able to surmise is— It was some kind of construct that crossed over from the astral plane. An infectious one, just like the monk's virus." He visibly thinks harder. "The symptom alerts were intended to help us be aware of mental alterations, but— They failed because there's no way to know when our own minds have been changed. Once they're changed— We simply believe what our minds tell us we believe."

"Creepy," Kerry says, not liking that at all. "How are we supposed to protect ourselves if we don't even know something's wrong?"

"That's the very problem we keep running into," Cary admits. "David, Melanie, Ptonomy, even Syd. None of them knew they'd been changed or by the time they realized— They were unable to resist those changes. What we need is— A mental defense system. With organic infections we have blood tests and medications and our immune systems. With computers we have firewalls and special programs that can identify and remove malicious code."

"So we need a mental firewall," Kerry says. "Dvd can do that."

"That's something only telepaths are capable of," Cary says. "Division 3 has already done extensive research on defenses against telepathy. That's what led to the creation of the mainframe. It's not possible to create an external defense against a mind reader. The defense must be generated from inside the mind. Implanting that kind of technology— Few would survive the drastic surgery required."

"Then— We need a way to check if we're infected," Kerry says. "Like the blood tests, but— Our minds."

Cary considers this. "Perhaps David and Oliver aren't the only ones who need to be scanned. Division 3 have our fingerprints and DNA, but what they need to do is take thorough scans of our bodies and our brains and repeat them on a regular basis. Obviously there will be changes over time, aging and other natural processes, injuries and so on, but— Our minds and our bodies are— If not indivisible, at least deeply interconnected. The monk's mental virus was physically detectable. So were the insanity creatures and so was Farouk, even as a disembodied mind. Mental invasions may not be visible, but— Their effects are."

That makes sense, but— "What about souls?"

"I'm not even sure what a soul is," Cary admits. "But— Thanks to Syd, we do have confirmation that they exist and can be separated from the body. Perhaps the embodied mind is— The integration of the soul with the body. Farouk's soul left his body and entered into David's body. We know that because he was able to free himself using Syd's powers."

"Do David and his brothers all share a soul? Do we?"

"I don't know," Cary says. "I would guess that they do. Divad and Dvd are parts of David, not separate individuals that entered his body. When Syd swapped with David, all three of them must have been present in her body, not just David, because they are all David. As for us— When Syd touched you, the process was disrupted by Farouk. Beyond that, none of us have ever thought to ask her."

They look at each other, and— It's—

"I've always wondered," Kerry admits. "If we're— One person or two. I mean, we have our own bodies, but— I always felt like— Your body was ours. And mine was— Just— Something I wore for a while, until I could be in our body again. But now I'm outside and— My body is ours but— It's mine. And yours is just— Yours."

"Yes," Cary agrees. "I suppose— We could ask. I'm sure Syd would agree to help. But— I'm not sure I want to know."

"What if only one of us has a soul?" Kerry asks. "Does that mean— One of us isn't real?"

"No," Cary says, firmly. "David, Divad, and Dvd are all equally real, even though they share a body and a soul. If we're like them, if we're— We'd be two minds— Two identities whose mutant powers allow us to— Embody ourselves separately. Like astral or mental projection, but— Physical."

"Physical projection," Kerry says, wondering. She's intensely aware of her body, of Cary's body. Of the sensations of the seat beneath her, the table under her arm, the lingering taste of the hot chocolate in her mouth. Her clothing and how it wraps around her body and holds it.

"I know you want to— Understand yourself better," Cary says. "If you want—"

"No," Kerry says, then— "Maybe. I— I have to think about it." It's such a huge question and she never thought she'd get an answer. She still might not. But the idea of certainty is— As tempting as it is terrifying. She doesn't want to have a separate soul from Cary, but— She also doesn't want to not have a soul, or—

"Kerry," Cary says, gently. "You know— Whatever we find out, if we choose to find out— It won't change anything. Just like me being older— It didn't change what we are to each other. You're still— My other half. My twin. No matter what we look like and— No matter what we are."

She meets his eyes and sees the love in them. She relaxes. "You are, too," she says, though it feels inadequate to say. Cary has always been better at words than her, better at ideas. Not because she's incapable of them, but— Because she didn't try more. She didn't risk herself more. She hid for so long and now she's far behind him.

But she's outside now. She just has to keep trying and— She'll catch up. A little at a time. There's a lot to learn but she'll catch up.

"Okay, so souls are real," Kerry says, getting back to the problem at hand. "And minds and souls and bodies are connected but separate things. And our powers are— Physical. Genetic. But some powers, mental powers— They don't need bodies to work."

"Perhaps those powers are also part of the soul or the mind. People like David and Oliver, they astral project. The soul leaves the physical body, taking the mind and conscious awareness with it. But they're more powerful when all aspects of their existence are combined. That's why Farouk needed his body back. Even if we can survive without our bodies— We need them." Cary snaps his fingers, excited. "That's what happened to Oliver. It wasn't the cryogenic suspension, we'll check but I don't believe that's the cause. It wasn't even the astral plane itself. If we use Oliver as our guide— I believe extended use of astral projection has negative effects. Without our bodies we start to drift, to lose ourselves. It took years of periodic astral projection for Oliver to wander too far but eventually he did. Thinking back— It didn't happen all at once. We thought he was— busy, distracted, but— Melanie was worried for a while. She tried to get him to stop but— By the time we realized something was wrong, it was already too late. And David— He spent a great deal of those two weeks outside of his body. A small factor in the grand scheme of things but— Important nevertheless. Perhaps with astral projection, like so many things, the dose makes the poison. Disconnect the soul from the body for too long and the mind— Loses coherence."

"Is mental projection as bad?" Kerry asks. David is mentally protecting now, and Divad and Dvd do it a lot. 

Cary hums in thought. "With mental projection, the soul remains inside the body. The mind itself is displaced but— I should think it's much safer."

"What if your soul is in someone else's body?" Kerry asks. 

"That's a very good question," Cary says, and he feels very far afield but— "Farouk became a parasite, drawing strength from David without giving anything back. But without his own body, David's body would have been— Influential, perhaps even formative without strong mental resistance. Farouk latched on to David for revenge, to survive, but— Then he couldn't get out. He must have found himself struggling to maintain his sense of self. That kind of extreme mental strain—"

Kerry's eyes widen. "What about Ptonomy? And Amy and Lenny? They don't have bodies."

Cary considers this. "Ptonomy and Amy both expressed— A sense of being different without their bodies. Perhaps for short periods, that kind of detachment can be therapeutic, giving relief from the physical body and a fresh perspective. Oliver initially thrived with periodic astral projection, it's part of what made him so effective in helping others. But after a while, he became— Detached. Dispassionate. Not all the time. I believe— when he was more engaged, it coincided with the periods where he remained in his body for longer, when circumstances kept him from projecting. Perhaps returning the soul to the body helps restore the mind's coherence." He frowns. "That means— Bodies don't just needs minds. Minds need bodies. The longer it takes to find Melanie, the more her mind will lose coherence."

"But she'll get better, right?" Kerry asks. She doesn't want Melanie to lose coherence. She was already acting weird even before she left her body. "When she's back in her body, she'll heal?"

"Yes," Cary agrees. "Though that will depend on how long it takes to reunite her soul and body. Lenny was quite detached when she first returned, but her time in her body helped her greatly. Oliver didn't remember Melanie at first but he does now. Clearly healing takes time. Let's add mental tests to Oliver and David's recovery plan. And as you pointed out, Ptonomy, Amy, and Lenny don't have real bodies to go back to. Perhaps these android forms will act as— A kind of prosthesis or chemical supplement. Ptonomy has seemed more engaged with the world with his new android. Hopefully Amy and Lenny will feel the same. But— As Clark said, we have to consider the long-term. Without their bodies, the three of them will eventually begin to display the same symptoms that Oliver did. And like Oliver, they may be unable to recognize those symptoms within themselves. That means they're our patients, too. We have to help them, track their condition."

"And we have to scan everyone with a body," Kerry insists. 

"You know, there is one benefit to the mainframe," Cary says. "It has data redundancy. So if the worst happened, we could in theory— Restore them from a backup. They would revert to an earlier version, lose whatever experiences they had since then, but— They would also lose whatever damage they incurred. In theory."

"That's a theory we don't want to test," Kerry says. The whole idea of it creeps her out. The whole idea of being reverted like that, being forced to forget, it's weird and creepy. It's too much like what Farouk did to David.

"Agreed," Cary says, meaningfully. "Let's speak to Clark and arrange to get the equipment we need. Division 3 can upgrade their security procedures and we'll take care of our own people. Hopefully this isn't all closing the barn door after the horses have escaped."

"More like— Locking the henhouse with the fox inside," Kerry says. 

"Oh, I like yours better," Cary says, approving.

Kerry preens. She's getting good with words and ideas now that she's had more practice.


	56. Day 9: The good news is— We're alive.

Amy looks in a mirror, and for the first time in weeks, she sees herself in her reflection. She puts her hand over her mouth and sees her hand cover her mouth. Her eyes crinkle with emotion and she can feel them crinkling. 

She's herself in the mainframe, but— She didn't realize how cut off she felt there until now, until the full, real world rushed back into her senses through her new, artificial body. She breathes in and she smells the air, the concrete and metal of Division 3. The smell reminds her of the compound where she was held prisoner, brings back the memories in a sensory rush. 

They're not pleasant memories and she always avoided them before. But if Amy has learned anything from all of this madness, it's that even her bad memories are something to cherish. It's better than having no memories at all. And the simple act of smelling the air and having it trigger a memory— She can't take that for granted anymore either. 

She might still be dead, but in this body she feels alive. She feels impossibly grateful.

"Thank you," she tells Ptonomy, and hugs him. Up close, the artifice of their bodies betrays itself, but— It's real enough for her. She knows it will be real enough for David. 

"Thank the Admiral," Ptonomy says, but he's happy too. "He made all of this possible."

"I will," Amy promises. It would be easy to open her eyes in the mainframe and reach out to him now, but she needs to be— Present in her body. Like David does. She needs this. She can't believe how much she needed it. 

She understands now why Ptonomy needs to be outside, why David does. She needs to be outside, too, to feel— The sun, the breeze. To smell and hear the city living around her. To feel the rough pavement under her shoes. She has shoes again, her own clothes and shoes. 

"It looks like Lenny has everything under control," Ptonomy says. "Where would you like to go?"

"I'm afraid I don't know the area," Amy says. She navigated her way to the clothing store to help with Kerry, but beyond that—

"Then let's just go out and walk," Ptonomy suggests. "Your new body was designed for you, but you still need time to get used to it. Let's get your feet under you."

§

They stroll around the city. No one looks twice at them. The Vermillion aren't exactly an unusual sight in this city, but they usually don't go shopping or have to talk down young women from panic attacks in clothing stores. Amy drew a lot of stares in the Vermillion. Now— She's normal. Or at least— She passes for normal.

She never truly felt the distinction before. How— Isolating it is, to be so different but have no one see. It's a relief but— It's also— 

She smiles at people as they pass and they smile back. There's a baby in a stroller and she stops to greet it. She buys a newspaper at a bodega and has a pleasant chat with the owner. His son has been helping with the store for years but he's finally going back to college to finish his degree. 

They find a bench in a small park and sit down together. It feels so good to exist again, to feel real. She opens the newspaper and skims it, catching up with the world she thought she'd never live in again. She could look at the whole world from inside the mainframe, see all the news, but—She likes holding the paper, the feel of it, the rustling sound as she turns the pages. It's— Tactile. Grounding. 

She folds the newspaper and sets it aside. She takes a deep, cleansing breath and lets it out. 

"Better?" Ptonomy asks. 

"God, yes."

"You look better," Ptonomy says. "I know all of this has been difficult for you. The mainframe, the Vermillion, David. Thank you for your help today."

"I just wish I could do more," Amy says. It's hard hanging back, watching David struggle with himself, knowing— She has to let him struggle. She has to let him suffer. Not because of Farouk, not anymore, but— There's simply no way for them to— 

David has to heal himself. They can help, they are helping as much as they possibly can, but— He's broken and they can't just glue him back together. They can't medicate him better. However much he can heal, he has to do the healing.

She just wishes she'd been able to stop him from going away again. She wishes she could hold him so he would know he's loved and that everything will be okay. She hasn't truly been able to do that for a long time. And now she has a body that's good enough to do it, but David is— Gone. Invisible and catatonic and beyond comfort as well as pain. When she thinks of how many times he must have gone away, how many times Dvd and Divad had to cover for him—

Maybe she can't do more right now, but— She didn't do enough for him then. She truly didn't. And their parents, however well-intentioned— Their fear and secrecy did so much damage. She still loves them, misses them deeply, but— She's angry with them for lying to her. For not trusting her with David's powers even when they had to trust her with everything else about him. She would never have let anyone hurt him, she wouldn't. 

"Do you want to talk?" Ptonomy asks. 

Any shakes her thoughts away. "Oh no, I'm just— Woolgathering."

"I've had a lot of practice reading emotions on David's face," Ptonomy says. "You make a lot of the same faces. And you know how this works, how we're surviving this. If you're upset, you need to talk about it."

"You already have your hands more than full."

"You're not my patient," Ptonomy says. "But with everything we're going through, I think we can call each other friends."

"I'd like that," Amy says, smiling for him. Perhaps they're a bit more— Therapist and supportive family member rather than friends, but— They're also two people trapped in a terrible situation together and trying to survive it. They're going through that as equals. Ptonomy's the one who saved her from being a prisoner in her own body, who stopped her from being the catalyst for a lot of pain for David and the world. She's trying to help him, too. That's how this works, how they're going to survive this. Helping each other. 

"I'm angry at Mom and Dad," Amy admits. "They— I know they thought they were doing the right thing, keeping David safe, but— They lied to me about so much. They hurt David. And— I know exactly how they must have felt. How— Scared and helpless and— I know they thought they were doing the right thing. But I'm angry at them and at myself and— Even David."

Even though he didn't want to have all those awful things happen to him, even though none of it was his choice— She's still angry with him. He lied to her, too, just like Mom and Dad. He doesn't remember it anymore but she does. Or— Parts of him remember it. Divad and Dvd remember. She could talk about it with them, but— They barely want to talk to her at all. 

"How's the lab?" Amy asks. She could look herself but—

"Productive," Ptonomy says. "They're having a wake. Lenny's unorthodox to say the least, but I can't argue with her results. She's getting Syd, Dvd, and Divad to process their grief."

"Oh, that's wonderful," Amy says, relieved. "After Dvd's session I was so worried."

"They'll be all right," Ptonomy assures her. "Dvd loves David. If he has to let go of their past to be with him, he'll do his best to let it go."

"It's still so strange, David having these— Relationships with himself," Amy admits. 

"His situation is incredibly unique," Ptonomy says. "A system like his— Clearly they were co-conscious and deeply cooperative. They must have loved and trusted each other unconditionally despite how things went wrong. And then Farouk took all that away. It's as hard for them to accept David as a separate person as it is for David to accept that they're a system. But they're all trying."

"They are," Amy agrees. She's heard their thoughts, she knows how hard they're all trying. David— All the parts of David want to reconcile. Even though they can't be one person again, they want to be— A healthy system made of three brothers who love each other. She wants that for them, too. 

"Is it wrong that— It's harder for me to see them than hear them?" she asks. "Listening to them existing together— It was strange at first, but— Seeing David switching like that, It's hard not to— See them all as David acting strangely and not— Being Divad and Dvd. Even though— They were the ones who used to pretend to be him. Divad was him for years, I— I didn't know."

"They were good at pretending," Ptonomy says. 

"I should have known," Amy insists. "I should have known about his powers, I did know. But— I pretended not to. We were all pretending that everything was normal, as if— If we just pretended enough that would make it true. Like— David trying to make himself believe he already loves his brothers."

"We can't believe things if we know they aren't true for us. We can try but deep down— Whether the ideas are our own or someone else's, we'll reject them. That's the problem with the delusion parasite. It has such a hold over David's system, it makes them believe things they know they shouldn't. They know they didn't deserve their suffering and we've seen moments of understanding, but they can't believe it yet. We just have to keep helping them believe it."

"I hope we can," Amy sighs. "It's awful watching him— Punish himself. The way each part of him takes out his anger on the other parts and themselves. David never liked to show his anger but— I had no idea how bad it was. How much he's been— Tearing himself apart, all this time."

"They have a lot to be angry about. But they need healthy ways to express that anger so they can stop punishing themselves with it. I've been reading up on anger management techniques. Maybe once they've grieved they'll be ready for them."

"They really are keeping you busy," Amy says, sympathetic. "David was always a handful but— I'm so impressed by how much you've helped him."

"He should have had real help from the start, Ptonomy says, an edge of anger in him. "He had a monster in his head making sure nothing could help him, but— That doesn't excuse my own mistakes. I had a lot of good reasons to be angry, too. I still do. But I took that anger out on David. I even took it out on you. I doubt anyone ever told you, but— I tried to stop David from going to save you when you were held captive by Division 3. Even though we knew you were being tortured, I considered you an acceptable loss. I'm sorry. That was wrong."

Amy stares at him, taken aback. Ptonomy does seem to be genuinely sorry, but it's— Unsettling, to hear that he was willing to let her be tortured. Being tortured was bad enough, even if that seems like a paper cut compared to what she's endured since then. 

"Well," she says, searching for how to respond. "That's— I suppose—"

"It's okay," Ptonomy says. "You don't have to try to make me feel better about it. But I don't want that between us. I don't want that to hurt us. I— There's always been a part of me that— Wanted David to be— Unsalvageable. The mad god that had to be destroyed to save the world. I wanted to punish him, I wanted to take my anger out on him. He was dangerous and unstable, he was a liar, he got Rudy killed, he got me killed. When I woke up in the mainframe I was— Numb at first, just— Struggling to understand where I was, what happened to me. When the shock wore off I should have been furious, but— I couldn't be angry the way I wanted to be, not without my body. And the Admiral— The odds were bad, but— David saved his life. He wanted to return the favor and he needed my help to do it. And that— It gave me a reason to stay. Helping David has given all of us a reason to stay. And now— I truly do want him to heal. Not just to save the world, but— Because he doesn't deserve what happened to him. He doesn't. Neither do you. So for my part in— Getting us here, I'm sorry. And I'm trying to fix it."

Amy takes that in. It's a lot. But— It probably doesn't matter how much of it she understands. Ptonomy needed to say it. He's had all that bottled up inside him for a while. She knows what that's like. 

She holds out her hand for him. "Thank you," she says. "For trusting me with that."

He takes her hand and smiles, grateful.

§

When they get back to Division 3, Clark is waiting for them.

"Is something wrong?" Ptonomy asks, concerned. 

"It's not urgent. The Admiral decided it could wait until you came back. But we do have a new development. Cary's setting up a secondary lab, I'll take you there."

Ptonomy skims through the feeds as they walk and sees Cary and Kerry working with the research team. There's a whiteboard with the words 'Detachment Syndrome' written large and a list beneath, some of it crossed out. The secondary lab is being filled with medical equipment and computers, and the table the research team is around is full of printouts. 

He checks on the primary lab. Oliver's meditating, conveying the relay. Divad and Dvd are quite drunk, hanging off of Lenny and moaning plaintively about David. Syd is chewing a Twizzler and her eyes are red from crying. The whiskey bottle is nearly empty and there's used tissues scattered across the table. Getting them drunk certainly wasn't Ptonomy's first choice or even his second, but he has to admit it's working. Lenny made the right call. Again. 

It's— A relief to see that— This isn't all on him. He's not doing this alone. It's felt that way sometimes even though he knew it wasn't true. But knowing and believing are two different things. He believes it a little more, seeing all this. 

"Ah, there you are," Cary says, waving them over when they reach the lab. "We've had something of a breakthrough."

"Detachment syndrome?" Ptonomy asks. 

"Kerry and I were pondering the nature of the soul over some hot chocolate," Cary says, in his usual tangential fashion. "We realized that— Well, we realized quite a lot of things but the important part is— We believe we know what's wrong with Oliver. And because of that, we know what wrong with you. Both of you, and Lenny, and— Anyone whose mind and soul have been detached from their body."

"We're dead," Amy points out. "Can there even be anything else wrong with us?"

"You're not dead, you're— Disembodied," Cary says, pushing up his glasses as he gets into lecture mode. "Traditionally, of course, the loss of the body was the definition of death. But just as our understanding of death evolved with the concept of brain death — the death of the mind while the body survives — now we have situations where the mind survives and the body dies. Body death or— Physical death, as opposed to mental death. If the mind can be moved to an alternate host, it can survive as you have. But disembodiment can happen through other means. Mutant powers often create a— Dynamic relationship between the body and the mind. Minds can separate from their originating bodies via astral, mental, or physical projection. We're still working out the details, but— We know now that astral projection — the disembodiment of the soul — has drastic effects on the mind, both good and bad."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, trying to slow Cary down. "What does that have to do with Oliver?"

"Right," Cary says, focusing. "It wasn't getting lost on the astral plane or— Being cryogenically frozen or even Farouk's possession that made him— Mentally altered. It was the disembodiment itself, chronic use of astral projection. The mind is— It forms as a conjunction of the body and soul. Separate them for too long and— The mind loses coherence. Emotions, memory, the sense of who we are— Drift away. We don't understand the soul, its properties, but— it seems to be—" He pauses, thinking. "Our bodies can retain our emotions and experiences even when we're not aware of them. It seems— The mind is like an impression made on the soul, but that impression isn't permanent. It's—"

"Clay," Ptonomy realizes. Damn Farouk. "Our souls are putty. Our bodies are the newspaper. We pull the putty away and there's a perfect copy, but it doesn't stay."

"Exactly!" Cary says, caught up in his understanding. "Return the soul to the body and the mind regains its coherence. Memories and emotions and our sense of ourselves returns. But the longer or more frequent the disembodiment periods, the more that coherence fades. The healing process between the soul and body is unable to complete. The way Oliver drifts and can't remember, even though his brain is undamaged, that's detachment syndrome."

"And we're disembodied," Ptonomy says, with dawning horror. "We're going to become like Oliver."

"Oh god," Amy gasps. "How long—"

"It's difficult to say," Cary admits. "This is a brand new diagnosis, it's never been studied. We're looking at all of Division 3's records of mutants able to disembody, whether that's through projection or other means. We're looking for patterns. It might affect each person differently depending on their genetics and mental and physical health, just like any disease. But your new bodies— Amy, do you feel better now?"

"Much," Amy admits. "I didn't even realize until— I guess I was— Fading?"

"You're probably the most vulnerable," Cary says. "You don't have any mutant powers which might lend your mind extra resilience. And the start of your current disembodiment preceded Ptonomy's and Lenny's. Thankfully, it seems these aesthetically accurate androids function as prosthetic bodies. It's not ideal, but it gives your souls the sensory input and proprioception they need to sustain your coherence, just as a mirror box can be used to reduce the pain of a phantom limb. And the mainframe acts as a prosthetic brain, so that should protect you from memory issues."

"So we're safe?" Amy asks, hopeful.

"For now, but— Even powerful mutants like Oliver can't sustain long-term disembodiment without displaying symptoms. We have no idea how long you can retain coherence even with your new bodies and the mainframe's support."

"The mainframe isn't just a computer," Ptonomy points out. "We're inside the Admiral's body."

"Which is how your souls were able to be 'uploaded' in the first place," Cary says. "His body is your souls' new host. But simply moving a soul into another body— The mainframe environment actually insulates you from the influence of the Admiral's body on your soul. Otherwise his body would begin to— Gradually overwrite you."

Ptonomy sits down. So does Amy. 

"This impacts all of us," Cary continues. "Oliver has an advanced case and we need to track his recovery and search for ways to accelerate it. He has to stay in his body to heal which means we can't let him go searching for Melanie. But that also means Melanie is going to be affected. Just like Amy, she has no mutant powers to protect her mind. Wherever she is, she's likely already begun to drift. But the good news is that as long as we keep her body safe, when she returns to it she'll be able to start healing." He turns to Clark. "I've decided to accept your offer. You can take Melanie after we explain all this to Oliver. I want her body to stay as healthy as possible so she can focus on healing her mind when we get her back."

"I'm glad to hear it," Clark says.

"David is unable to astral project with the crown on," Cary continues, turning back to them, "But I am concerned about the mental projections he, Dvd, and Divad are sustaining. Divad has expressed a similar sentiment that David needs to be in their body to heal and it's possible that he and Dvd are sacrificing their own health on David's behalf. Switching out, taking turns as they're doing now, that will be beneficial. Mental projection likely isn't as dangerous as astral projection as the soul is still inside the body. But it's quite important that we help David so his whole system can share their body together. The whole of David's mind needs to heal. Perhaps they could share while they sleep."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, mentally adjusting his plan for David's recovery yet again. "What about us?"

"You, Amy, and Lenny should spend as much time in your new bodies as possible," Cary says. "Social contact is important. You should participate in activities that stimulate your senses and your proprioception. You'll all need to be tested regularly and so will David and Oliver. We're also setting up a new security procedure to help detect the physical manifestations of mental invasions and infections for all of Division 3, and those of us who are embodied will need to be part of that procedure. Division 3 has proved itself unable to defend against mental attacks but we can at least improve our detection rate."

Ptonomy nods, barely taking all that in. Cary and Clark can handle the security procedures but— "We'll work out a new treatment plan and a schedule for everyone."

"Agreed," Cary says. "And— regarding Lenny, Oliver, and Farouk. The three of them shared a body for a year. Three separate souls, two of them powerful mutants— there must have been consequences. Even though Oliver was the host body, Lenny described being inside of Farouk, like Russian nesting dolls."

"So Farouk was her host?"

"Effectively," Cary says. "We believe that's why David expressed difficulty in differentiating between Lenny's thoughts and Farouk's thoughts. But between her time in her second body and the mainframe's security procedures, that should no longer be a concern."

"Should?"

"Again, all of this is— Uncharted territory. A large problem with all of these mental diseases is that once our minds change, we have no easy way to detect that change because we are our minds. If the Admiral declared Lenny clean, then she probably is. But Farouk spent thirty years inside of David and a year in Oliver. He's back in his own body now and he was obviously powerful enough to retain at least some of his mental coherence. But we don't have a baseline to compare. We don't know much about Farouk's mind at all. David's body is incredibly powerful and so is Oliver's. Farouk's behavior over the decades, his singular obsession with David, his behavior now— It's likely that these are all related to detachment syndrome, either the effects of it or the effort required to retain coherence and survive as a parasitic soul."

Ptonomy leans back. "Did you just diagnose Amahl Farouk?"

Cary shrugs. "I doubt he'll appreciate it. Interestingly, Syd may be immune, or at least strongly resistant. Her powers are directly related to the separation of the soul from the body, and when we did her entry interview at Summerland she expressed that no matter what body she entered, she always retained a strong sense of self. Granted, those were historically for short periods and she didn't switch often, but she has been practicing with Matilda a great deal and she hasn't started— Chasing mice."

"You were totally going to say licking herself," Kerry says, amused.

"It seemed— Impolite," Cary admits. "Regardless. Perhaps she can assist us in better understanding the relationship of the body, mind, and soul, and even with developing treatments for detachment syndrome. Assuming of course that it doesn't put her own health at risk."

"As long as it doesn't get in the way of David's treatment," Ptonomy says. "That has to stay our first priority."

"And it is," Cary agrees. "But David has done a substantial amount of astral and mental projection, both recently and before he lost his memories. And once he has the crown off, he'll want to resume doing those things. If we're going to keep him healthy and stable and help him create a life for himself and his system, we need to understand all of him. Not just his mind but his powers and the way his powers, soul, mind, system, and body all interact."

"That's quite a list."

"It is," Cary admits. "David is, as a person, incredibly complex. His powers, DID, amnesia, trauma and other issues— All of these are substantial on their own, but they must be taken both individually and as a whole."

"Just like David's system," Kerry says, visibly pleased by her contribution.

"On the plus side, this is an opportunity to learn a great deal about all of those things," Cary says. "And understanding detachment syndrome— That has tremendous potential to help many, many people. Division 3 has been so hostile to people like David in part because mutants with his powers have been the most unstable. Detachment syndrome may be the answer to that: a disease that went completely unstudied and untreated because it wasn't safe for its sufferers to ask for help, assuming they could even realize they needed it. Now that we know, we can develop treatments and learn the safety limits for projection. We can teach mutants how to protect their minds and use their powers responsibly. A lot of lives can be saved and made better." He turns to Clark again. "I think it would be good for Division 3 to be the ones to help make that happen, don't you?"

"The Admiral agrees," Clark says, but beneath his reluctance he sounds almost— Glad.

Amy turns to Ptonomy. "I guess the good news is— We're alive."

"We're alive," Ptonomy echoes, equally stunned. They thought they were dead but they're alive, just— Disembodied. The bad news is— They're sick. And if they don't get the treatment they need, they're going to drift away just like Oliver.


	57. Day 9: Do you have any jazz records?

The relay itself takes very little effort to sustain. 

Hearing, of course, requires no effort at all: hearing David, the mainframe's telepathic signal, the entire population of Division 3 and the buildings around it. Oliver remembers very little of his past, but— He remembers that the hard part has always been the avoidance of thoughts. There are so many minds thinking inside him all the time; there always have been, even on the astral plane. Cacophonous, like all the music in the world playing at once.

Hearing is passive. Listening, however—

It's primarily about focus. Find a single voice amongst the cacophony and focus on it. Dial out all the other voices — like turning down the volume on a record player — until there's only one voice. Tune the dial until the music comes through on the mind's radio loud and clear, without interference. Find the song and follow the notes.

Oliver has been back for— Hmm, how long is it? Two days? Four? Six? He can't be sure. He's not sure how long he's spent looking for Melanie. He's not sure how long he's spent listening to David. Time is— unreliable. It has been for— An unreliable amount of itself. He was on the astral plane for a very long time, but his body is still young. Nothing was real there. Nothing is real here. Life is unreal. It's a very noisy arrangement of atoms.

David is a very noisy arrangement of atoms. His song is a six-part harmony from a three-piece band. 

When he first appeared, David's song was more— Heavy metal, full of thrashing, violent noise, so much that it was surprising that David was able to think at all. But despite the noise, his melody was strikingly clear. 

Melody. Melody. Melanie. 

Over the roofs the lilt of a sad Melanie, and now rats and lions chase each other round the orchestra, fiddle string to bass gut staccato.

Hm, where was he?

Oh yes. David. His song is quieter now, one player silent, the other two— Inebriated, their thoughts concordant instead of their usual dissonance; bassmen standing looking sad, all bowed together in mournful lament. The funeral march played for the players. Death without death. What is death but— atoms seeking a new arrangement?

Life, death. Irrelevant, all these— Concepts. Identity, morality, love, pain.

Love. Pain.

Love.

David thinks about love constantly. In some form or another, from one player or all three. He's always seeking it, fleeing the pain of it, yearning and seeking it again. He forgets it and remembers it and wishes he could forget and remember. He grieves now, embracing love's pain. Oliver hopes it will help him. He wants to help David. He is helping him. That's why he's staying. That's why he's listening, holding focus, even though his atoms would quite like to seek a new arrangement for themselves.

It's tiring, all this listening. Focusing. Searching. His body has done little but rest but his mind—

No matter. When David rests, Oliver will be free to search again. To tune through the dial for a different mind: singular in an endless number of ways. It's his fault, what's become of her. Oliver remembers very little of his past, but— He remembers— Melanie. As she was and then— As she is. Her new arrangement of atoms, all that change in the blink of an eye.

Did he love her? He must have loved her. He must have— felt things, once upon a time. But it's been a very long time since he felt. He felt something for David, listening to his desperate screams. A pang of— Something. He's felt it before. It makes him want to help. Not out of curiosity, but—

The word eludes him. Elephant? No, that's not it.

He's still trying to think of the word when he hears other minds grow louder in his head. Cary and Kerry. He's not sure if he remembers them from before. He thinks— Possibly. Ptonomy and Amy are with them, but he only knows that because Cary and Kerry are thinking about them being there. They have no song. Neither does Lenny. It's quite strange. He couldn't hear Farouk's song either, but he still knew it was there. This is— Absence. The lack of sound, not the muffling of it. A composition without players, or perhaps they're playing on some other plane. Strings and reeds with vibrations beyond hearing.

He knows other people can't hear minds. He remembers that. David can't hear them because of the crown on his head. It's hard to imagine true silence. It must be intolerable. Even the ice cube was too quiet, muffling the noise beyond, but he had music. He had jazz, loud and cacophonous. The ice cube was tolerable with jazz.

Oliver listens as Cary and Kerry check on David and Syd. There's a mild fuss, David is grieving quite badly and he wants to suffer, but they get him to drink some water and eat. David doesn't want to be away from himself, so they let him lie down on the sofa and put a blanket over him. Syd agrees to stay with him. She wants to suffer, too.

Hm, but Oliver does try not to listen to Syd. He knows she doesn't like that he can hear her. Hearing is unavoidable. If people don't like him hearing their thoughts, they should stop shouting them. There are plenty of thoughts he'd rather not have in his head, but he's not going to walk around with his fingers in his ears. It wouldn't work anyway. He tried, mostly out of curiosity. He's not listening with his ears so they're not the problem.

He doesn't remember what works. Perhaps nothing does. Perhaps all he can do is focus. But David is going to sleep, so Oliver has nothing to focus on, only— Melanie.

"Oliver," Cary says, and Oliver opens his eyes to greet him. "I know we agreed that you could leave to find Melanie when David doesn't need you, but— There's been a development. About your own health. We're— Very concerned about your condition."

"I know," Oliver says, because obviously he does. He's heard Cary worrying about him quite a lot. But the particular arrangement of his atoms is hardly a concern. "But I really should be going."

"To look for Melanie," Cary says, answering himself. He pulls over a chair and sits down. "This is about Melanie, too. Did you— Hear any of what I discussed with Ptonomy?"

"I was listening to David," Oliver says. He can only listen to so much at once, and David is a lot to listen to all on his own.

"Well," Cary says, and thinks, 'How can I tell him? What if he gets upset? We don't have any way to keep him here. I don't want to make him wear a crown, god, he's already been through so much.'

"Tell me what?" Oliver prompts, for both their sake's.

"Oliver, you're sick," Cary says, forcing the words out. "And— The more you search for Melanie, the sicker you're going to get. That means— You have to stop looking for her because— If you keep trying, we're going to lose both of you."

Oliver frowns. "I have to find her."

"Of course you do," Cary says, earnestly. "We all want to find her. But— You're in no condition to search the whole astral plane on your own, when you're already sick. If you go back there, you're going to forget— Even the little you've been able to remember. If you look for Melanie, _you will forget Melanie_ , and then— You'll forget that you were supposed to find her and you'll forget that you were supposed to come back. That's how we lost you before and _please_ , Oliver, _we don't want to lose you again_."

That does sound— Familiar. "I forgot. Yes, I did forget." He did forget who Melanie was. Otherwise he couldn't have remembered.

"You don't want to forget her again, do you?" Cary asks. "She's your wife, the love of your life. You want to remember her. What you had— Who you were together. You want to remember all of that. But— If you leave your body, your mind _will forget_. Leaving your body is what's making you sick. It's very, _very_ important that you _stay in your body_."

Oliver turns and looks at Melanie's body. It's empty. It shouldn't be empty. Cary sees him looking and feels terrible.

"I'm sorry," Cary says. "When we lost you the first time, Melanie and I— We had no way to get you back. So we froze you. We kept your body safe and healthy so when you came back, no matter how long it took, it would be waiting for you. Melanie didn't want your body to— Atrophy, for it to— She saved the only part of you she could. Now we have to do the same for her. We have to save Melanie's body so when she comes back, it will be waiting for her, whole and healthy."

Oliver feels— A pang of something. A feeling. He's not sure what. He ponders it. His body feels quite distant and so do the emotions in it. But— It's familiar, quite familiar.

Oh, it's grief. 

He knows the word for that. There's been a lot of people grieving in his head. David and Syd are grieving. Cary is grieving, too, and Kerry. Sadness mixed with love and the pain of loss. He doesn't particularly want to feel that. It seems quite unpleasant. But— He appears to be feeling it anyway.

"I have to stay, so— I won't forget her," Oliver says, trying to figure out if he has any other pangs. "Because leaving my body will make me forget."

"Yes, exactly," Cary says. "When you're feeling better, when David's feeling better, you can work together to find her. We'll have a real plan and Division 3 will help us find her. You're in no condition to find her right now, but you will be when you're better."

"You're lying," Oliver points out, neutrally. "You're afraid I'll never get better. You're afraid David will never get better. You don't know how to find Melanie."

"I am afraid," Cary admits. "You're both very sick. But even if I'm afraid— David is getting better, and— You'll get better, too. I do believe that, truly. And when you're both better we'll figure out how to find her. And before you hear it from my thoughts first— Melanie is sick, too. Wherever she is, being outside of her body is making her sick just like it made you sick. And the longer it takes for her to come back, the sicker she'll be. But the best way to get her back, the fastest way, is for you and David to focus on your recovery. If you put everything you have into getting healthy, then you'll be strong enough to save her. And then she'll be back in her body and that will help her heal, just like it will help you heal."

Oliver considers this. "That is sensible," he agrees. Grief is unpleasant, but— Forgetting is also unpleasant. And if he can't remember who Melanie is, he won't be able to recognize her when he finds her. It's a perplexing conundrum. 

"Then you'll stay?" Cary asks, hopeful. "You'll let us help you get better?"

"If I must," Oliver agrees. He doesn't feel much one way or the other about anything, beyond— Needing to find Melanie. But it seems going to find her will only guarantee her loss. He's at an impasse. So— "What do I need to do?"

"Just stay," Cary says, relieved. "Stay in your body and be with us. Talk to us. Tell me how you're feeling. How are you feeling?"

"All right, I suppose."

"Not— Angry, or sad, or— Anything?" Cary asks, concerned.

"I don't much see the point. It's all— Irrelevant."

"You're very detached," Cary says. He takes Oliver's hand. "That's why we're calling it detachment syndrome. Because you've become— Deeply detached from yourself on all levels." He gives a sad smile. "You would have loved this, you know? The old you. You would have loved being the one to figure this out. A whole new disease and so much therapeutic potential. So much to learn and teach to help others. You were so passionate, Oliver. You were full of love and caring for the whole world. You had such— Wonderful dreams. Do you have dreams anymore?"

"I don't know," Oliver admits. "I haven't slept."

"You haven't slept? How long has it been since you slept?"

"I don't know," Oliver says. He tries to remember. "How long did you say I was in the ice cube?"

"Twenty-one years."

"That, then," Oliver says. "Oh, twenty-two. It has been another year, hasn't it?"

Cary is horrified. "That's impossible. You must have slept. You've been sleeping here."

"My body sleeps," Oliver says. "I don't. It's quite boring, waiting through all that. So I leave."

'Dear god,' Cary thinks. 'It's even worse than we thought. Thank god for the Admiral, if he hadn't sent Clark—' "Well— We have to try to help you sleep with your body. It's very important for your mind to sleep with your body so you can heal. It might be difficult at first, but— Will you try?"

"I can't make any promises," Oliver says. "I don't think I remember how to do it."

"It's not usually something you have to remember how to do," Cary says. "It's just something that happens. It's— A biochemical process, a neurological one, physical. But your soul—" He sighs. "This is going to take some research. But please promise me you'll stay in your body even when it sleeps. Please? If you leave, you'll forget Melanie. You don't want to forget Melanie."

"If I must," Oliver sighs. "Perhaps—"

"Yes?"

"It might not be so bad if I have some music to listen to. Do you have any jazz records?"

§

They didn't bring Oliver's music collection with them from Summerland. It's in storage and they'll get it out, but in the meantime, Cary takes Oliver's list of requests and goes to find Clark.

He doesn't have to. He could have had Ptonomy pass the request through the mainframe. He could have continued to stew in his anger about the past and blame Clark because Clark is one of the few safe targets he has for Division 3's horrific crimes.

But the fact is— Cary is part of Division 3 himself. He has been for a year. He signed the employment contract and he gets Division 3's checks deposited in his bank account every two weeks. This whole past year— He's been detached himself, dissociating from the reality of his situation, trying not to think about the organization he found himself joining against his better judgement, for the sake of other people's lives.

But he did join Division 3. He joined the organization that killed a lot of people he cared about because he had a miraculous opportunity to make it something other than a ruthless machine for destroying lives. And he went through the motions but the reality he has to face is that he's squandered that opportunity. Instead of embracing the work like Melanie and Syd and even Ptonomy, he hid himself in his lab and focused on Oliver and David without considering the bigger picture at all.

And then when they got David and Oliver back, he hid from them. He didn't want to face David's madness and he was glad for the excuse of the relay so he didn't have to face what Oliver has become. And dear god, what he's become is— Beyond heartbreaking. As bad as David was on that terrible day, so lost to himself that he begged for death. Oliver isn't begging for death, but that might only be because he's lost too much of himself to care. 

Clark tried to make it easy for him. He said that David is loud and Oliver is quiet, so of course it was easy to overlook Oliver. But Cary absolutely overlooked David. He had no idea what was happening in his own lab, that David was recovering traumatic memories and astral projecting with no real supervision or guidance. He saw David change Syd's mind but he didn't look at what happened before that. 

Dear god. When they came back, they both seemed— 

But Cary should have known. He should have seen it. When Oliver rescued him from the fantasy Clockworks, when he didn't recognize anyone, when he couldn't remember words or even himself— But when he came back he took right to the work, he was capable, he was calm, even if he didn't remember them. And then he was gone and— Cary was just relieved to get him back again. Oliver was awake and alive and that was all that mattered. If he was quiet, if his mind drifted, well he'd just been through a traumatic year on top of being stuck in an ice cube for twenty-one years. Who would blame him for being quiet, for needing to rest?

But Oliver hasn't slept in twenty-two years.

The diagnosis of detachment syndrome didn't exist before today but the symptoms did. And Cary's job is to look for symptoms, to recognize them and figure out how to treat them. He learned how to do that with Oliver and Melanie. And now he's let both of them slip away because he was too busy hiding from reality to recognize their symptoms for what they were and give them the help they deserved from the start. 

Cary's always considered himself to be a physical coward. But he didn't realize he was an emotional coward, too. He thought he was the responsible one between himself and Kerry. But she stepped up with David first and she's the one who's been pushing both of them to accept their new arrangement. Cary still wants to go back to being the one on the outside. He's barely gone into Kerry at all and not just for her sake. If she wasn't so used to not having anyone inside her, she would know how much that should hurt, how incomplete it should make her feel to not have her other half trust her to carry him.

Maybe Kerry was right. Maybe they're only sharing one soul and only the one on the outside gets it. Because right now Cary feels absolutely soulless.

The door to Clark's office is ajar. Cary raises his hand to knock, then pauses, listening.

"—yeah, I know," Clark says. He's on the phone, talking to someone. He pauses, listening. "No, I don't want you anywhere near this. One of us has to stay alive, right?" Another pause. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't joke." A long pause. "What did his teacher say?" A sigh. "You know how this works. If I could leave, I would. God knows how bad this situation would get if I left." A pause. "I have to go. I love you." The sound of a phone being put back in its cradle. "You can come in now."

Cary pushes the door the rest of the way open. Clark gives him a placid look.

"Um," Cary begins, awkward. He steps forward and puts the list of music on Clark's desk. "Oliver requested these. If you can get them for tonight. He needs them for his sleep therapy."

"Sonny Simmons?" Clark reads, picking a name from the list. "Very lulling. I'll have it delivered to the lab." He reaches for the phone, then stops. "Was there something else?"

"Yes." Cary sits down. He probably should have asked first but— "I wanted to apologize to you. For my— Hostility."

Clark leans back, obviously not expecting this. "Apology accepted. May I ask why?"

"You were right about Oliver," Cary admits. "And Melanie and David and— I may take great issue with some of your methods, but— Your instincts, the Admiral's instincts have been correct. Their situations should never have become— If I'd done my job, you wouldn't have had to do yours."

Clark considers before replying. "You're right. You didn't do your job. But you're doing it now and we hope you'll keep doing it, however long we have you."

"At this point?" Cary sighs. "I have no idea. Quite honestly, I was expecting all of this to end as soon as we saved David and Oliver and stopped Farouk. Obviously things haven't worked out like anyone expected."

"Obviously. So now?"

Cary considers the question. "Detachment syndrome— I could have found it without Division 3's resources, but with them I can do so much more. This is— It's a tremendous opportunity to make the world better. That's what Summerland was about. That's why Melanie convinced me to work here. To save David and Oliver, yes, but— It was supposed to be more than that and— That dream wasn't just hers and Oliver's. It's my dream. And if this place has the resources to make it happen— Then I'll stay."

Clark allows himself a tiny smile, one corner of his mouth tugging upward. "I'm glad to hear that. But this isn't just about you."

"No," Cary agrees. "But— Perhaps this isn't a binary choice, staying or leaving. The Divisions were created to study and defend against what people saw as the mutant threat. Melanie and Syd convinced the division leaders that the existence of mutants doesn't make us a threat, but— As you've admitted, the mindset of an organization like this is slow to change. David gave the Divisions a push, Melanie and Syd did, and now— It's my turn."

"I'm listening," Clark says, and he is.

"I haven't entirely thought this through," Cary cautions. "But— For a first draft— Division 1 is command, Division 2 is pure research, and Division 3 is a militarized engagement force. I propose Division 4. Integrated with the other divisions, but— A therapeutic organization directly facing the mutant and mental illness communities."

Clark's brow furrows. "Mutant and mental illness? Or mutant mental illness?"

"Both," Cary says. "Mutants who need help with their powers or minds or both. And humans who need help with their minds. Summerland— We only had the resources to help a few and so we focused on those who needed help most. But the Divisions are an international organization with tremendous resources. Mental illness is a global problem affecting every country, every person, no matter what their genetics are. Quite frankly, it's hard to be a mutant without having some kind of mental illness, because it's hard to be a human without having some kind of mental illness, whether we acknowledge it or not. Melanie isn't a mutant, Lenny and Amy aren't mutants, but we're not going to abandon them because of that, any more than it's right for people to be abandoned because they're mutants. What this is about is— The people who feel like they'll never be normal, that they'll never belong. Whatever the reason. If they want to get better, whatever that means, they can't do that alone. They need help and the Divisions have the resources to provide that help. So we should."

"You don't think small," Clark says. "Melanie wanted the Divisions to leave mutants alone."

"If we've learned anything from all of this, it's that leaving people to suffer alone doesn't help them," Cary returns. "Ignoring their pain doesn't help them. Obviously we need to avoid making things worse, and the Divisions haven't exactly been known for their deft touch, but— That's why it should be a new Division. We should keep pushing to change the other Divisions but— Someone needs to be the example so everyone else can see what's possible. An international coalition of humans and mutants working together to make the world better for everyone. That's what's possible."

"Interesting," Clark says, considering it. "And who would run it?"

"Our team," Cary says. "I know right now we're— Quite a shambles. But everyone in that lab is there because they believe in the work. If we can survive this, we can take the lessons we're learning now and apply them to the world. And— I'd like you to be a part of it. You are a part of it, even if— You have very good reasons to keep your distance."

"I do," Clark says, meaningfully. "However— If we survive this and the world doesn't end— It's not a terrible idea. I'm not personally comfortable with it, but maybe that's exactly why it needs to happen. I expect you'll be busy for a while, but— Write up a proposal. I'll look at it. If we're not all dead in a week, who knows? David has been giving the Divisions a hell of a push. Maybe you can finish the job."

"The job's never finished," Cary admits. "That's why we have to keep pushing."

Clark gives him a very considering look. "You know, there's a reason doctors avoid treating their own families. It's hard to be objective. Do your job, but don't torture yourself for missing what you didn't want to see."

"You saw it," Cary points out.

"That's my job," Clark replies. "It's easy to be objective about people who aren't your friends."

Clark meets his eyes. Cary understands.

"Then as distant coworkers," Cary says, "If we can keep the world from ending, I'd like us to work together to make it less likely to almost end again." He reaches out his hand.

Clark shakes it. "As distant coworkers, I look forward to it."


	58. Interlude I/Day 10: Whatever's happening, it can't be real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a suicide attempt.

David is having a nightmare. 

It must be a nightmare because he can't find Divad or Dvd anywhere. He's looked for them, called for them, even tried to reach their bedroom even though he's never been able to reach their bedroom. The monster won't let him.

The bedroom is gone.

Whatever's happening, it can't be real, because he doesn't feel the monster either.

It could be hiding. It must be hiding. It's always been there even if he couldn't— Even when it wasn't there, he knew it was there. Like he knew Divad and Dvd were there. But— He's alone. In himself. That's— Impossible. It can't be happening. It has to be a nightmare. He has a lot of nightmares. That's really all he ever has. He doesn't have good dreams, the monster won't let him have anything good. If he has a good dream the monster always finds a way to make it bad.

He's not sure where he is. That happens a lot these days. He's stopped— Keeping track. Divad and Dvd are taking care of things for him, taking care of their body. They know what's best for it. They know what's best for him. He can't— Decide things, anymore. He can't make the right choices. He ruins everything so— It's better that he doesn't— Do things. Exist beyond— Whatever he can do to be useful for their system. He stays with them so he can help them, tell them what people are thinking so they can make it through their classes and survive— The world. If they didn't have their powers, each other, they'd never survive the world. It's all so— Beyond him. Impossible. He can't— _be_ anymore, he can't be the part of him that's in the world. It's done, it's over, no hope of return.

But he's alone in their body. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know what's happening. He's afraid and alone and— This isn't real. It can't be real.

He curls up into a tight ball, his panic rising, taking him over. Maybe if he just goes away for a while, he'll wake up and everything will be okay. Divad and Dvd will be back and he can hide again. If he goes away everything will be okay, or at least— Survivable. So he goes away.

§

When he comes back, he still doesn't know where he is. He's still alone. Nothing is okay, but— If he's the only one in their body, he has to take care of it until Divad and Dvd come back. They'll come back. They have to come back. They're part of him and he's part of them. He can keep going for them. That's the only way he's made it this far.

He can listen, so he listens. He doesn't hear anyone else: no thoughts, no voices. That's impossible, too. There are always voices in his head. Even if he's deep in the wilderness, he hears people thinking. Hikers and homeless people and park rangers and hunters. If he listens harder, he can hear thoughts from miles and miles and miles away, from little towns and even the cities beyond.

He listens now, but all he hears is a quiet room.

He looks around. It's some kind of lab. There's— a seating area and a table and a bunch of beds and some computers. It looks like a room designed for a lot of people, but he's alone. There's a window so he gets up off the floor and looks outside. 

He's in a city. There's buildings, cars parked on the street. But— There's no people. It's empty. There's no one walking on the sidewalks, no one driving on the streets, no one working in the offices. It's daytime, morning, the world should be full of people doing people things but—

There's nothing. No one. The world is— Empty. Like him.

This can't be real. It has to be a nightmare. He just has to go away again and he'll wake up and everyone will be back. He lies down on the sofa and curls up until he goes away.

§

When he comes back, he smells food. Waffles. There's a blanket over him. Someone was here. There's someone else— Alive. He strains to listen, but— He doesn't hear anything.

Maybe the monster finally figured out how to break what was left of him. Maybe he can't hear anyone because he can't listen anymore. Of course. Of course that's what happened. He's truly useless now. That was— Listening was the only thing he was still good for, and the monster took it away.

He doesn't deserve waffles. He throws the blanket away and curls up, miserable.

Time passes. The smell of the waffles fades. Their body is tired and hungry, but he doesn't deserve food or rest. Maybe Divad and Dvd didn't get taken away. Maybe they left. They promised they'd never leave him, but— Their bedroom is gone. They're gone. Maybe they're gone because they know he's useless. Dead weight. He's been dead weight for years. A broken plate they're too sentimental about to throw away, even though it can't do anything for anyone. They can't eat off it and it's not even pretty, and if they hold it, the sharp edges will cut their hands. That's all David is now, an ugly, stupid burden that hurts the people he loves.

If they're gone, if they're never coming back—

He should kill himself.

It's obvious. It's obvious that he should kill himself. If the only person left in their body is him— There's no reason to take care of it, protect it, give it food. There's no reason to make the effort to keep it alive. If he's the only thing that exists in this body, in the whole world, there's no point to making it continue. There's no point to making all this pain and suffering and endless torturous agony persist. He tried going away and it didn't help, so— He has to make everything go away. That will help, it has to. It will make the pain stop.

He gets up. He goes over to the table. He picks up the plate of waffles and smashes it against the table. He picks up a big, sharp shard and takes it with him back to the sofa.

It's going to hurt, slicing their arms open, bleeding out. But pain doesn't matter, he's used to pain, his whole life is pain.

He listens again. He tries to find Divad and Dvd one more time, but there's nothing. He's empty. They were the only real parts of him left and they're gone so their body is empty. There's no one in it, no one worth saving, so— He should throw it away. Just— Throw it away.

He makes the first cut, long and deep and god, it _hurts_. He screams and cries but he keeps cutting. He starts on the other arm, but their hand is slippery and weak and it's harder, but— It's working. There's so much blood pouring out of them. He feels faint. Faint is good. Numb is better. He drops the shard and lies down, feeling their body weaken. Their heart slows, struggling. He closes their eyes, grateful for the darkness pulling him down.

§

Divad and Dvd wake screaming.

It wasn't real. It was a nightmare, just a nightmare. God, it's been so long since— They shouldn't have gotten drunk, they let down their guard and now—

"David," Dvd gasps, raising their head to look. 

David is just how they left him, curled up insensate on the loveseat. Divad never thought he'd be relieved to see David this way, but— After the awful thing Farouk just made them see—

"David?" Syd calls, sleepily. She picks her head up from the arm of the other loveseat. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Divad says.

Dvd lurches out of their body to sit next to David. Dvd curls up around David and holds him tightly, eyes squeezed shut.

Divad hates the shit beetle so much, he wants to be the one to torture him now. It felt so terribly real.

No, calm, stay calm. It wasn't real, that never happened. David's alive, he's— Not great, but he's alive and their body is— Also not great, but their wrists are whole and unmarred. Divad rubs them anyway, chasing away the imagined sensation. 

"You need to wake up," Dvd says, tightly. "Please wake up."

"That's never worked before," Divad sighs, though he wishes it had. He wishes a lot of things had ever worked.

"Shut up," Dvd bites out. He buries his face against David's shoulder. He's not crying but it's obviously taking everything he has to hold back.

Divad feels the same— Or he would if he didn't have the ability to shut himself off. Right now he has no doubts about using that ability to the fullest. The shit beetle took advantage of their drunken state to send them a hell of a nightmare. Divad will never sleep again if that's what it takes to protect them from ever having another.

"What's going on?" Cary's up now. "Ah, may I ask who—"

"Divad," Divad tells him. "Dvd's sitting with David now. We had a— A bad dream but we're fine now."

"Speak for yourself," Dvd grumbles. "Oh wait, you _are_."

Divad sighs. Dvd's never going to forgive him for college. Especially not after they just saw David as he was right before they lost him. They saw him in their body as it was then: younger, healthier, their hair longer. They looked so young and David was so—

David. Oh god, David. It hurt so much to see him again, especially as some— Twisted creation of Farouk's. That wasn't real, it was just an illusion. David could never be alone. Even when he couldn't hear them, they were with him, protecting him. They would never leave him alone to— Never. 

_Never._

If Farouk thought he could— Push them apart with this because they're grieving, he was wrong. That wasn't David. That version of David is gone, he's dead, he's never coming back. This is David, right here in front of them. Dvd is holding David. This David is real, not— _This is what's real._

"We have to try again," Divad tells Dvd. "The therapy. We have to try it again. David needs us."

Dvd doesn't reply, but Divad knows him. Dvd's no is always loud. Saying nothing is basically his way of saying yes. 

The lab door opens. "Is everyone okay?" Ptonomy asks, worried. Lenny and Amy follow him inside. 

"We're fine," Divad tells them. "We just had a bad dream."

"That didn't sound like 'just a bad dream,'" Cary says. 

"Tell them to fuck off," Dvd says, angry and wounded. 

"It's private," Divad says, but with the same meaning. He might be calm but that was— 

Great, and now Kerry's awake. The only one asleep is Oliver and he's not actually asleep. No one could sleep listening to the absolute racket seeping out of his headphones.

Ptonomy sits next to Syd. "Divad, you know that nothing about this situation can be private. Especially if it makes you and Dvd wake up screaming like that. You just said you wanted to keep talking, to keep trying to heal your system. So talk to us."

Divad looks at them all gathered around looking concerned. Right now all that's doing is making him feel cornered. But he know Ptonomy won't let this go. "Fine. But just you." He points at Ptonomy.

Ptonomy agrees and everyone else steps away. They're still in the lab and they're still going to hear everything, but— It's enough. It's— Not entirely awful that they all care. It's just too much to deal with, especially right now.

Divad looks at David. He really wishes David would wake up. 

"You had a nightmare," Ptonomy prompts. "About David?"

Divad gives a tight nod. This whole— Therapy thing. Even when he covered for David he hated it. All those people with their certificates and degrees, they never understood anything about their system or what they were going through. They never listened even when they did try to tell them the truth. They didn't want to believe anything that came out of their mouth, not when it went against their precious diagnosis. Maybe if they'd— No, they tried— Nothing worked so—

"Divad?" Ptonomy prompts again.

"Yes, it was about David," Divad says in a rush, because that's the only way to get the words out. "He was— Here, but— Everyone was gone. He was— Absolutely alone. And he— He was like he was. Before. And we weren't there, so he—" He stops, unable to continue. It's too much to even say. He reflexively covers one wrist, then forces his hand away.

Ptonomy takes all that in. "David was in a very bad state before Farouk took his memories. You had to do everything for him. To keep him alive."

Divad nods.

"So if you weren't there, if he was alone— There wasn't anyone to keep him alive."

Divad nods again.

"That must have been— Enough to make anyone wake up screaming," Ptonomy says, gently.

Divad doesn't respond to that. He doesn't have to and— He's glad. He's glad that Ptonomy understands them enough that they don't have to spell it out, they don't have to rehash their pain over and over. Ptonomy isn't like all the other doctors and therapists. Divad knew that, he saw it with David, but— 

"Okay," Ptonomy says, like that's the end of it. He doesn't need to hear the rest. Divad barely said anything but it was enough. He never thought he'd be grateful for telepathic therapy but he is. Saying these things aloud is— Even when he's numb, it's too much.

But that's not the end of it, not quite.

"And Farouk sent you the nightmare," Ptonomy says, like it's a fact.

Divad stills. Did he— He doesn't think the relay is on now and he doesn't think he thought about the nightmares when anyone could hear it. But he could have slipped up before, when he didn't know they were listening. He can't look back at their recordings of him to know.

"When David was in the cell, when I first came to see him, Farouk visited him in a dream," Ptonomy explains. "But you've been managing David's sleep and David hasn't had any dreams, much less nightmares. If Farouk's been trying to get into your system's body all this time, I can't imagine he wouldn't be trying to get in through David's dreams, not when he already has a way."

"He's been trying," Divad admits. There's no point in lying about it now. 

"What?" Dvd says, outraged.

"You didn't tell me about him trying to get into our body," Divad shoots back. He turns back to Ptonomy. "It's very simple. People dream all the time, but they can't remember their dreams unless they wake up while they're dreaming. I keep David from waking up at the wrong time. So it doesn't matter what Farouk tells him or sends him, David won't ever remember any of it which means he's safe."

"That's simple?" Ptonomy asks, eyebrows raised.

"It is for me," Divad says, allowing himself his pride. He worked hard figuring out how to stop the nightmares. He can't actually stop them from happening, but stopping the memory of them is just as effective.

"You can't shield your body's mind, somehow?" Ptonomy asks, gesturing at his own head. "Like Dvd shields David's thoughts. Could you do it with the crown off?"

"The crown has nothing to do with it," Divad says, tersely. "Dreams aren't— They're not something you can shield."

"Why not?"

Divad huffs. Ptonomy might understand their system better than anyone ever has, but he still doesn't understand anything else. "Because of the vast subconscious. The astral plane. When we dream, we're— Connected. You can't break that connection, and even if you could, not dreaming makes people sick."

"Cary," Ptonomy calls. "I'm sorry, but Cary needs to be part of this conversation."

"I heard," Cary says, sitting down next to Ptonomy. "This is fascinating. Our minds are all connected to the astral plane?"

"Of course," Divad says. Honestly, they're supposed to be the experts in mental health and mutants, but they don't know this? "How could Melanie be lost among seven billion minds if we're not all connected to the astral plane?"

"The vast subconscious," Cary echoes, like he's only now processing what those words actually mean. "All our minds are connected by the astral plane. Not just when we dream, but all the time?" He leans back, looking like someone just hit him with a bat. "Oliver mentioned it, but— I didn't understand the ramifications, not back then. That must be— How telepathy works."

Now it's Divad's turn to be confused. "What?"

"Mind readers hear thoughts," Cary says, caught up. "But Oliver always described it as— Thoughts inside his head. Proximity is a factor, but we could never explain how the mental signals were produced or recieved. They must propagate over the astral plane, via whatever natural connection joins every one of our minds to the vast subconscious. Telepaths don't read minds, not directly. They're somehow able to— Receive the signals our minds send into the astral plane. That's why there's no way to shield our minds externally. It's not an external phenomena."

"Wait a minute," Dvd says. "Is he saying that I can shield David's dreams?"

Divad relays that to Cary, curious for the answer himself.

Cary thinks. "Shielding is— An internal phenomena. But if dreaming extends some part of us out into the astral plane— To use Kerry's metaphor, dreaming bypasses your mental firewall. And as Divad pointed out, dreaming is essential to our well-being. We all need to dream. So does Oliver. But Oliver hasn't dreamed in twenty-two years."

Divad gapes. "That's impossible. I know he's not all there but that is definitely not possible."

"It is with detachment syndrome," Cary says. "Ah, you were— Otherwise occupied. Kerry, could you grab a flyer?" She brings one over. "We had these made up today. It's a bit preliminary but all of this applies to the three of you. We were going to talk about it with you in the morning— Though technically it is morning now."

Divad reads. Dvd comes over and reads over his shoulder.

"The hell?" Dvd says, alarmed. "Projection makes us sick?"

"Chronic astral projection is what made Oliver 'not all there,'" Cary explains. "For the sake of your system's healing, you need to share your body as much as possible, ideally simultaneously."

"Ha!" Dvd cries, exultant. "I told you we were supposed to share!"

"David can't share with us," Divad points out. 

"That's why his possession trauma just became a priority," Ptonomy says. "In the meantime, the best option is for you to share your body for sleep."

"But given how Divad has been protecting David's dreams, that does pose a problem." Cary looks thoughtful again. "You said that the trick is to keep David asleep until he's not actively dreaming? So it's a matter of avoiding the interruption of REM?"

"Pretty much," Divad says, pleased by the interest. It's been a long time since he had someone to share his ideas with. Knowing their system from the inside made him an ace at biology. They didn't even have to cheat for that. Well, maybe sometimes, just so they wouldn't lose their scholarship. "Actually, we do dream during NREM, but those dreams don't involve the astral plane. They're purely internal. That's how we dream when we're projected."

"Fascinating," Cary says, pushing up his glasses. "Perhaps you can help me with Oliver's situation. Ah— Ptonomy, I'm terribly sorry for taking over your session."

"I'm done for now. You three go ahead," Ptonomy says, and stands up. "Anyone want some coffee?"

§

Ptonomy watches, quite satisfied, as Cary, Divad, and Dvd have an intense discussion about the metaphysics of sleep. He follows some of it, but as useful as the information is, that's not why he's happy right now.

He's happy because Divad and Cary just became friends. And maybe a friendship was started between Cary and Dvd. Without the relay it's hard to be sure, but just the fact that Dvd is engaging in the conversation is a very good sign. 

Divad and Dvd can't depend solely on David for their emotional needs anymore, and they shouldn't have had to in the first place. It's been a challenge to work on that with them so isolated and defensive. As frustrating as it is when David goes away, those have also been the best times to give Divad and Dvd a chance to engage beyond him.

Dvd and Divad might not have any interests outside of protecting David, but the fact is that protecting David is a full time job for all of them now so they might as well lean into it. Divad is responding to Cary, bonding over their shared interest in science and how it can be used to keep them safe, and that's pulled Dvd in, too. Patching things up between them and Amy is vital but difficult. And Ptonomy still thinks Kerry and Dvd are a good match. The problem keeps coming back to giving them time to be together. As Clark said, they're balancing a lot of concerns. They have to keep their primary goal in mind.

'You did a good job with that wake,' Ptonomy tells Lenny over their mainframe link. Now that they need to stay in their androids, they've had to fashion an internal communication system so they don't have to disembody to speak privately. Mainframe telepathy, of a sort. 'Thank you.'

'Yeah, I told you,' Lenny replies. She tries not to show that she's pleased, but she is.

It's taken Lenny a while to warm up to them, but the fact is: Lenny knows Farouk and David from the inside. She and David have a bond that's held strong through death and madness. Farouk helped make their bond that strong but that doesn't mean it isn't real. They're still going to have some bumps, but— Lenny earned David's trust in Clockworks and she's earned their trust here. Whatever she's had to do to survive— That's going to help them survive now.

'What do you think about the nightmare?' Ptonomy asks her.

'It's a fucking trap,' Lenny says, plainly. 'The shit beetle has David's memories. There's no way he's not going to find ways to use that. By the way, I am not happy about this dream thing. There's no way it's safe just because David can't remember.'

'Maybe, but Divad's trick seems to be working. I'm more concerned about Cary, Kerry, and Syd — and Oliver if we can actually help him dream. They're vulnerable and if Farouk keeps getting frustrated by Divad and Dvd, he's going to start working on them — assuming he isn't already.'

'And we have to worry about our minds dissolving,' Lenny says, dryly. 'Shit. David better come back soon or I'm gonna make him come back.'

'We have to tell him, but— I don't want to put this on his shoulders,' Ptonomy says. 'He has a lot to deal with already. We have to help him with his possession trauma so he can share his system's body.'

'It's weird, calling it that. It's his body. I should know, I was in it.'

'And he's a system,' Ptonomy replies. 'The more we use language that supports that, the easier it will be for him to accept it, for all of us to accept it.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Lenny grumbles. 'So what do we call them, like, as a whole?'

'We'll work something out,' Ptonomy says. 'We could call them the Hallers, but that includes Amy.'

'The Davids,' Lenny insists. 'I bet they'd like it. They all look like him, right? They're proud of being parts of him. Their names are basically his name.'

'We're trying to get them to accept that they're individuals,' Ptonomy reminds her.

'Yeah, and we're also trying to get David to accept that they're not,' Lenny throws back. 'David and the Davids. That's a good name for a band.'

'David is one of the Davids.'

'Fine. Then Lenny and the Davids. That's even better. You know I'd be the frontwoman.'

Ptonomy chuckles. He's starting to understand why David connected with Lenny in the first place, and how they were able to survive together. 'Dvd got us all saying shit beetle. I wouldn't be surprised if you got us all saying 'the Davids'. But run it by them first. I'm only supporting this if they agree to it.'

'Okay, okay,' Lenny agrees. 'At least we know what the shit beetle wants now. We know why all of this happened.'

Ptonomy has a pretty good picture of all of this himself now, but he wants to hear Lenny's version. 'Let's hear it.'

'So Farouk gets his ass kicked by David's dad, and somehow he finds David. He thinks he's got an easy revenge. But once he's in, he's fucked. Can't get out, can't take over. Baby David's too strong. So Farouk loses his shit and takes his rage out on David. But then Divad and Dvd show up. David's system gets stronger even though David's broken. They've almost got a normal life until Farouk figures out how to mess all that up. He feeds on them until he's really strong, but being a parasitic soul made him think he's— Part of David. The part that's meant to be in charge, like Divad was. He still wants revenge and revenge means ending the world, but— The world ain't real. The only thing that matters is David.'

'I think you're right,' Ptonomy says, impressed. 'Revenge was his goal at the start of all this. He still believes it is, that he wants David so he can use him to end the world. But the truth is that _David_ is his goal, possessing David's body and his powers and most importantly his love. That's why he loathes anyone who David loves and has to hurt them. And all that torture? It's his way to punish David for loving other people, for not being his. To punish other people for loving David. If Farouk had won in the desert, he would probably have gone right back into David's body, even though he'd just done all that work to get his old body back. He would have gone in and taken over.'

'Ugh, he's such a fucking creep,' Lenny says, angrily. 'We're not letting him get back into David.'

'We're not,' Ptonomy agrees, firmly. 'But he's going to keep trying. We thought he wanted David's pain but that pain isn't enough. He wants David's love. He's going to keep watching until he figures out how to get it. And then—'

'And then we're fucked.'

'Maybe,' Ptonomy allows. 'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'

'I hate it when you quote things.'

Ptonomy smiles. 'The more we learn about ourselves, the more Farouk learns about us. But he doesn't truly know us. How well do you think he truly knows himself? He thinks he's a god and gods don't get sick. He has his own delusion parasite eating him alive: the delusion that David belongs to him. Being trapped inside of David for thirty years made that delusion grow absolutely monstrous. Being forced out of David made him furious and he's still angry about it. Angry people make mistakes.'

Lenny considers this. 'He must be unbelievably pissed at Divad and Dvd. So the first chance he gets, he hurts them bad.'

'Exactly. But he slipped up. He let us know something important. We suspected he had David's memories but now we know it. We can start planning for what he might do with them.'

'We still don't know for sure.'

'We do,' Ptonomy says. 'Because if he just wanted to hurt them with David's suicide, why make David young? A suicide by David as he is now would have hurt more, they would have blamed themselves for rejecting him. And we know Farouk can make mental constructs of people. He did that with Amy when he made the one that laughed at David. Maybe he can attach memories to them.'

'A mental construct with David's memories? Even creepier. What's he doing with it? Torturing it?'

'Can a mental construct be self-aware?'

'Hey, I've got a soul so don't ask me,' Lenny says, defensive. 'I'm mainframe-certified real. Maybe he's, like— Being David, somehow. _Ugh._ God, I wanna stab him in the face.'

'Get in line,' Ptonomy says. 'We'll talk to the Admiral and have him run the numbers. See what the most likely possibilities are, start contingency planning. Farouk likes playing close to his chest, but he can't play the game if he doesn't show some cards.'

'You and your metaphors,' Lenny grumbles.

'Everyone loves my metaphors.'

Lenny rolls her eyes, reaches over and slaps him on the arm.

'Thanks for the physical stimulation,' Ptonomy grins.


	59. Interlude I: Call me Amahl, David.

David wakes up. 

He's weak, but— He's alive. Somehow. He's not on the sofa anymore, he's on one of the beds. He looks at their arms. They're wrapped in bandages. He feels the hurt of the healing cuts. He must have been out for a while. Their body is dressed in a hospital gown.

Someone saved him. He doesn't understand why or who, but— Someone won't let him die. Whoever it was— It must be the same person who brought him waffles.

There's an IV in their hand and a monitor. It shows their heartbeat. He wishes it would stop, but— It keeps beating, the line rising and falling and rising.

It's not fair. He lived for Divad and Dvd and they're gone. He's not allowed to die, but— He has nothing to live for. Whoever's keeping him alive, they're just— Torturing him. It's— Monstrous, keeping him alive. He just wants to die.

He cries in frustration and pulls off the bandages and—

David wakes up. 

He's weak, but— He's alive. Somehow. He's not on the sofa anymore, he's in a hospital bed. He looks at their arms. They're wrapped in bandages and tied to the bed. He feels the hurt of the healing cuts. He must have been out for a while. Their body is dressed in a hospital gown.

Someone saved him. He doesn't understand why or who, but— Someone won't let him die. Whoever it was— It must be the same person who brought him waffles.

There's an IV in their hand and a monitor. It shows their heartbeat. He wishes it would stop, but— It keeps beating, the line rising and falling and rising.

The door opens. A man walks in. He's— David's never seen him before, he doesn't recognize him at all, but he's wearing a white coat and he has a pen in his breast pocket, so he must be a doctor.

"David," greets the doctor. "I see you're awake. How are you feeling?"

David stares at him. "Am I dead?"

"Of course not, my dear," the doctor says. He sits down in the chair next to the bed. "Do you think you're dead?"

It's a good question. If this is a nightmare— It's a very persistent one. None of this makes any sense. Divad and Dvd— They can't be gone. Unless— What if they didn't leave? What if the monster hid them and the bedroom, and— And— Oh god, what if David selfishly tried to kill himself instead of trying to save them? What if he almost killed them by hurting their body? They must hate him for that. God, he's so useless, he's such complete garbage, he should be the one the monster took away, this is all his fault.

"David," the doctor says, concerned. "Shh, don't cry. It's all right. You're safe here."

"Safe?" David laughs, between sobs. Nowhere is safe. Nothing is safe. He's never ever been safe and he'll never ever be safe, especially not now that he's alone.

"Yes," the doctor says. "This is a safe place for you. David, I took the monster out of you."

David stares at him, his sobs skidding to a halt. No one's ever believed them about the monster. Everyone said they were crazy when they talked about the monster so they gave up trying. They couldn't get the monster out their body, it was impossible.

"You don't believe me?" the doctor asks. "Have a look." He holds up two photos from some kind of brain scan. "That's before, and that's after."

One of the photos has areas marked in red. The other one doesn't.

"See? You're clean, David. The monster is gone."

"No," David says, shaking their head in sheer disbelief. "That's not—"

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when you first woke up," the doctor says, kindly. "I thought you would need time to rest. I didn't realize how much the monster had hurt you, that the first thing you would do was try to hurt yourself. You mustn't hurt yourself, David."

"No," David says again. "This is— It's a trick. It's not real."

"Why wouldn't it be real?"

"Because— Because I looked outside and no one's there!"

The doctor gets up and goes over to the window. "The world is full of people."

"You're lying!" David insists. "I can't hear them!"

"These windows are very thick," the doctor says, giving the glass a tap. "Here, I'll show you. If you promise not to hurt yourself?"

"Fine," David grumbles. This is all a trick and a nightmare and— Something. So whatever. He'll find a way to kill himself later. 

He's released from the restraints and the IV and sensors, and the doctor helps him stand. David's wobbly, but he makes his way over to the window.

There's people. Lots of people, all— Doing normal people things. How? "They were gone," David tells him.

"Your mind may be— Unsteady for a while," the doctor explains. "You may see and hear things that aren't real. The monster didn't want to leave you. I'm afraid he did quite a lot of damage before we got him out."

David sits down. The sofa was cleaned while he was unconscious. "Brain damage?"

The doctor nods. "That's why you're here. This is a safe place for you, where you can have the treatment you need to get better. I understand that your previous diagnosis was schizophrenia. I know that's isn't true, David. The voices, the hallucinations, all the strange things you experienced, those were caused by the monster."

David stares. "What?"

The doctor tilts his head. "Do you still hear voices? There may be moments, periods of hallucinations, but they will lessen with time. I promise."

David wants to ask about Divad and Dvd, but— It's not safe to talk about them. It wasn't even safe to talk about the monster. But the doctor knew about the monster and got him out. How— What even happened before all this? The last thing he remembers— What's the last thing he remembers? They were in college, in their dorm room, studying. Divad was studying. David was— watching him study, idly listening in case there was anyone dangerous Dvd needed to know about. There usually wasn't, but Dvd always wanted to be sure.

"How did I get here?" David asks, bewildered. "How did you find me?"

"You had a seizure," the doctor explains. "Quite a terrible one. You were brought to the hospital. I scanned your brain and found the abnormalities, the damage. I had to open up your head to get it out."

David touches their head. 

"Don't worry," the doctor says, amused. "It healed while you were in your coma."

"I was in a coma?" David gapes.

"Surely you wouldn't have wished to be awake during all that?" the doctor tuts. "I kept you safe so you wouldn't suffer while your body healed. Then I brought you here to heal your mind."

"Heal my mind?" David echoes.

"You had a monster in your head," the doctor says, sympathetic. "I cannot imagine what you must have endured. So you must tell me, share your feelings and emotions and thoughts with me, so I may treat them."

David recoils. They've endured so many doctors telling them that, and every time they told them the truth— No one ever believed them and so all the truth ever did was make everyone think they were crazy. And then they would be punished with more treatments, more medication they didn't need, that didn't help, that just made them worse. The monster made sure that telling the truth would only ever be another kind of torture.

But the monster is gone.

"Is it really gone?" he asks, afraid to believe it. Afraid— This is all another trick. It has to be another trick. It has to be. His whole life has just been— Trick after trick after trick, manipulation and torture and— It was never going to end, he'd accepted that it was never going to end, that the only thing he was good for was— being the punching bag for a vile sadistic monster hiding so deep inside of them that no one would ever be able to get it out.

Divad wanted to try to get it out. David couldn't hope anymore but Divad could. And now— Divad is gone, and Dvd. How can he ever hope again? He doesn't even remember how.

"It's really gone," the doctor says, showing him the scans again. 

David stares at them. Before and after. Red and white. Infected and— Clean.

Clean.

But— He can't hear the doctor's thoughts. He can't hear the people outside. And Dvd and Divad and the bedroom are all still gone. What happened to his powers, to his system? How can he be alone in their head? It's so quiet, he doesn't know what to do with all this quiet. If he fills it with his own thoughts— 

He needs Divad. He needs Dvd. Where did they go? What happened to them? They promised they'd never leave him, they wouldn't have just left him. Even if he— Even if he's useless, they wouldn't have left him. Something must have happened to them. The seizure? The surgery? The monster? What if he never gets them back? How's he going to survive? He can't survive on his own, he's— He ruins things when he tries, he makes everything worse. He couldn't even wake up without trying to kill himself after the doctor worked hard to save him. 

This is all— Too much for him. It's too much. Being— Saved. Healing. It's too much. Divad should be here, he could do it. He needs Divad. He needs Dvd. They have to come back. If they're trapped inside him, he has to find them so they can come back.

He closes their eyes, concentrates, but— Nothing happens. He can't— He's just— Stuck. Trapped alone in their body, completely alone. He can't be alone, he can't _be_ without them, he's nothing, he's no one, he's—

The doctor takes their hands, holds them. "David," he says, looking into David's eyes. "You were put in my care because I can help you get better. Don't you want to get better? Don't you want to see your family again? Amy? Your father?"

Amy. Dad. It's been years since— Since he even talked to them. Since he did more than watch Divad talk to them. Divad was always better at being David than David was. Amy and Dad are happy when Divad is in charge. They don't— David is too broken to be with them. All he ever does is make them sad and upset. They've probably been sad and upset while he was in a coma but— They won't be happy when they realize that the wrong David came back. 

"No," David says, roughly, as tears streak down his cheeks. Whatever happened— Something went wrong. Something went terribly wrong because something took Divad out and left David behind. David's the one who should be gone. He should be gone, he should be gone, he just wants to be gone.

He bursts into sobs. He wants to die, he just wants to die, maybe he can— The stitches— But the doctor is holding their wrists and won't let him.

"Oh, my poor dear boy," the doctor says, and holds David close. "Cry all you want. You've suffered a true ordeal and now you've had a terrible shock. But you're safe now. The monster is gone and I won't let anyone harm you. I won't let you harm yourself again."

David struggles in the doctor's hold but it's too strong. He can't escape. He can never escape. Even if he goes away, he'll still come back to this. There's no one else inside their body to help him. He's terrified and he hurts so much, everything hurts so much.

When he doesn't calm down, he expects the doctor to drug them. That's what doctors do, nurses, hospital attendants, orderlies. They drug them so they don't have to deal with their pain. They tie them to a bed and lock them away, all while thinking about how hopeless and broken and disgusting he is. How tragic it is that he'll never be normal, never be happy, that he's just sick, he's sick, he'll never be anything but sick. They pity him but they know, they know this is all he deserves, that he doesn't deserve anything good, that broken people aren't people anymore, they're just— Inconveniences, burdens, broken toys that can't even be played with. That's all he is and all he'll ever be and he stayed alive for Divad and Dvd but now, now there's no point, there's no point to him, he's too sick to ever get better.

The doctor doesn't let go. He doesn't drug David and walk away, disgusted. He keeps holding him and David— He's weak from— He doesn't have the strength to fight. He just— wears himself out and— And the doctor is still holding him. 

David can't hear his thoughts. Surely the doctor is thinking so many awful things about him. Doctors always do. But there's nothing, absolutely nothing and— It's a relief. Not knowing. It's terrifying and unnatural, the silence, but— He's so tired of always hearing the bad things people think about him. So maybe— Maybe it's better this way. He's useless to Divad and Dvd now, but— They're not here. So it doesn't matter if he's useless. Nothing matters.

He's so tired.

"There, there," the doctor soothes, rocking him a little. His voice rumbles against David's chest. "You're all right now. I'm here. Doctor Farouk is here."

David blinks, realizing that he never asked the doctor's name. "Doctor Farouk?" he echoes, slurring. 

"Amahl," Doctor Farouk says, a smile in his voice. "Call me Amahl, David."

"Amahl," David echoes.

"Good," Doct— Amahl says, warmly. "That was very good what you just did, letting all of that out. But now you need to rest."

David tenses, thinking about— Waking up alone. But Amahl strokes his back, soothing. 

"You need to rest and not worry about anything," Amahl says. "Let me take care of everything. I'll be right here and I won't leave you, I promise. I know it's difficult, you haven't known me very long, but— I've known you for quite some time, David. I've taken care of you, protected you, kept you safe even from yourself. You must try to trust me. Can you try?"

Trust a stranger? David hasn't ever trusted anyone outside of his system or his family. But— They're not here. Dvd and Divad and Amy and Dad, they're not here and David doesn't know what else to do. And— He is a doctor. Not that David's had great success with doctors before, but— This doctor actually helped him. He got the monster out. That's— That's worth a little trust.

"I'll try," he says.

"Excellent," Amahl says. "That's all you have to do." He pulls away, but only to lay David down on the sofa. There's a pillow, somehow, and a blanket that Amahl tucks tight around him. 

David is so tired. He just wants to sleep.

"Good," Amahl says. He strokes their hair, lulling him, each stroke pushing him gently down. "Then sleep."

§

David wakes to the smell of food. Not waffles. It's— He doesn't recognize it. It smells— Foreign. Spiced and— Sweet?

He shifts, feeling wrung-out, empty, but— He slept. On the sofa. He opens their eyes, squints. The afternoon sun is coming in through the window, warm and bright. The doctor— Amahl. Amahl is still here. He's sitting on the loveseat, eating— Some kind of stew?

David pushes himself up, pushes off the blanket cocoon. There's another bowl on the table, covered, and a glass of water and a pitcher and a tissue box and— Pills.

"Simple painkillers," Amahl says. "I thought you might have a headache."

"Yeah," David says, voice hoarse from— Incoherently sobbing all over Amahl. Their head is sore. And their arms itch, but he knows that means they're healing. The bandages are fresh; Amahl must have changed them while David was asleep. David's— Glad he didn't have to see that, to see what he'd done. He felt like he had to but— 

He takes the pills and washes them down. He takes a tissue and blows their nose. He breathes and tries to center himself. It's hard without— It's hard when it's just him. That's not how they work. But— Divad and Dvd are still gone. They're really gone.

If he thinks about them anymore, he's going to break down again, so he looks for something else to think about. The stew. He doesn't remember the last time they ate. He doesn't remember the last time _he_ ate. He stopped doing that when he let Divad be in charge. 

But now it's just him. He has to eat if he's going to keep their body alive. There's probably no point, not if it's just him. He's not— Worth anything to anyone. But— If there's any chance they might come back— He doesn't want to risk them not having a body to come back to. He already made that mistake once, he can't do it to them again. He has to keep going for them, like he always has, even if they're not here.

And he is hungry.

"Um," David says, looking at the covered bowl. Is that for him? It's probably not for him.

Amahl puts down his own bowl and touches the covered one. "Ah, still warm, excellent. I wasn't sure how long you would need to sleep. Here, you must try this. I made it myself. It was my mother's recipe, our family _tajine_. Comfort food."

David could do with some comfort food right now, even if he's never tried this kind before. He slides over the bowl, their hands shaky, and removes the cover. "It's a stew?" he asks.

Amahl offers him a spoon. David takes it and cautiously prods at the mixture of meat and vegetables and— fruit? He's not used to fruit being in stews.

"Lamb with chickpeas, carrots, and apricots," Amahl explains. "And plenty of _ras el hanout_." He slaps his stomach. "Warms the belly. Try it, please."

David takes a cautious taste. It's— A lot of flavors all at once, sweet and sour and spicy. It's several thousand miles away from his usual comfort food, syrupy waffles. He regrets not eating the waffles when Amahl left them for him. He regrets—

But Amahl saved their body. He didn't let David— Hurt Divad and Dvd that way. That's good, that he did that. He must very kind, to— To do all this for Divad and Dvd, to make food for them. David should eat it for them, for Amahl. 

It's not— Comforting, but— It's warm and— It's probably good for their body. He has to take care of their body until they get back. They'll probably be upset about— Their wrists. But— They have other scars, faded and silvery, in places that were safe to mark. They'll just have to wear long sleeves so no one knows what David did to them. They're used to having to cover for him, for his incessant mistakes. This was just another one of his mistakes. More proof that he shouldn't be in charge, that him being in charge is— Disastrous. That's what he's always done, make things worse, fall for the monster's tricks, let himself be manipulated. He can't make decisions on his own, he can't— He just needs to do what he's told, eat what he's given. It's better that way, it's always better that way.

He manages about half the bowl before he can't force himself to eat any more.

"Sorry," David apologizes, guilty. "I'm just— Not that hungry, I guess."

Amahl's smile seems— Forced, for a moment. But then it eases. "That's quite all right. Did you like it?"

"Sure," David lies. "It's just— Kind of a lot. If I've been, you know, in a coma, I should probably— Eat light, for a while."

"Of course," Amahl says, with understanding. "You're quite right. All that time without eating. The body needs time to adjust to— A return to wholeness."

"Yeah, I guess," David says, though that's a funny way to put it. The last thing he feels is whole. But Amahl doesn't know about Divad and Dvd. He only knows about the monster, and— Maybe that's what he means. But David's never known how to be without the monster, either. He doesn't even know who he is without the three of them. He's just— what's left. The remnants, the scraps. And now he has to somehow— Sew the scraps together. Make a— A whole person out of them? That's— He couldn't ever be a whole person on his own. Even if he heals— He can't survive on his own. There's just no way.

"Amahl," David begins, and then thinks maybe he shouldn't be so familiar with his doctor when he says this. "Doctor Farouk, I— I don't know why you're doing all this, but— You don't have to. I'm not— I'm not worth all this— It must be expensive, me being here, and I can't afford, my family can't—" He swallows. "Maybe it would be best if I just went home. I'm— I'm awake now and okay and— Maybe not great, but— I'll— Survive and—" He swallows. "You've already done so much for me, I can't— The monster's out, like you said, so—"

He'll go home. He'll see Amy and Dad again and— Try to be Divad for them. He'll try to be the David they want him to be. He'll cover until Divad and Dvd get back, just like they always did for him. And if they don't— If they never come back— 

If they don't come back, it won't be their body anymore, just his. He won't have to keep it alive. And no one will care if it's just his body, if it dies. It will just be a relief for everyone. Like when Mom died and it was a relief because she was sick for so long. Listening to her struggle to breathe— Amy and Dad thought the same things about her as they do about him, so he already knows they'll be okay with it. That the world will be relieved and lie about how sad it is and then just— Move on, without him dragging them down and holding them back like he always does. The world will finally be free of his sickness, and so will he.

Amahl gives him a considering look. David meets it and then looks away.

"Your treatment is my gift to you," Amahl says, waving off the concern. "You have great value to me, David, but not to yourself. You need a purpose for your recovery. A reason to do the work of living. Let me give you one."

David meets his eyes again, curious as to what he could possibly say.

"I was raised in a faith," Amahl says. "I have since moved beyond that faith, however— To kill yourself was considered the gravest of sins. Slice open your wrists, and you will slice open your wrists forever in the fires of hell."

David reflexively pulls their bandaged wrists against their body.

"But such thinking is— Old-fashioned, in this modern age," Amahl continues. "I may not be young, but I have no interest in old-fashioned thinking. I have always embraced the challenges of the mind and that is how I have thrived." He smiles, even and broad. "I have been inside you, David, inside your body. I reached into your essence and removed the source of your pain. But we are more than our bodies, we are our minds. And while I have cured your body, your mind remains very, very sick. And that is why I need you, David. You could say that— It is my dream to cure you, and by curing you, to cure the world."

That's— A lot for David to take in. "Cure the world?" he asks, confused.

"You are the key, David," Amahl explains. "The key to winning the war of the mind. To ending the pain of millions, even billions of people. I have spent my life listening to the world, and what do I hear? They beg for relief, for release. So much suffering, and for what? Together we can end their pain."

David tries to understand that. "You want— A cure for mental illness?"

"For madness," Amahl says. "Do you know the history of madness, David? It was once thought that all madness was caused by the possession of evil spirits, or perhaps the punishment of gods." He smiles, amused. "Then came the madhouse. The lunatics were gathered together and experimented upon. The doctors shocked them, drowned them, drugged them. Tortured them quite cruelly. But they were mad, and of course lunatics are not human, so—" He shrugs. "You know this yourself."

David nods. He knows it painfully well.

"The madhouses were barbaric," Amahl continues. "The doctors began to feel guilty. So they made new madhouses, polite ones with polite forms of the same tortures, and polite forms of the same madness. Hysteria. Mania. Schizophrenia. They divided these into smaller, even more polite forms, and so on and so forth. And so we reach the modern world, where there are thousands of tiny madnesses, and all the tortures of the madhouse are condensed into little pills that the patient delivers upon themself."

David thinks of the countless pills that they were forced to take. Every single one was all kinds of torture: multiple humiliations, physical and mental suffering, loss of self-control. And if they resisted them, that only made everything worse. If they didn't take the medication themselves, it was forced on them. If they fought back, they were dangerous. If they used their powers— 

But he knows that— Even if it was awful, even if it was the monster making it happen— Even if the medication was wrong— It happened because he deserved it. They knew what he was, deep down; he heard them thinking it. They knew he was broken and he knew it, too. Even Divad and Dvd knew it. It wasn't fair that Divad and Dvd had to suffer because of him. They weren't sick like he was. He tried to make them stay in the bedroom so they wouldn't have to endure it. He tried to stay in charge so they wouldn't be tortured. But it was too much for him, all of it, and he gave up.

And now they're gone and— He has to be here. He has to endure whatever other people want to do to him, even— Whatever this is. He has to endure it for them, at least until he knows for sure that they aren't coming back.

"Why did you try to kill yourself, David?" Amahl asks. "The monster was gone. Or did you not know it?"

"I knew," David admits. "I felt it. But—"

"But what?" Amahl prompts.

David can't answer that. He can't explain that the only reason he stayed alive all this time was for Divad and Dvd. He never deserved to live. But he didn't want to hurt them. He couldn't hurt himself without hurting them. So he stayed alive for them.

"I know your history, David," Amahl says. "I spoke with your family, your classmates. I know what you have suffered. But I also know you are a person with a great deal of compassion and love. Despite your suffering and because of it, you want to help people. You want to be a doctor, to make the world— Better?"

David hesitates. Divad is the one who wanted them to be a doctor. David gave up on being in the world and Dvd only wanted to keep them safe from it. But— Before college, before things got— Unbearably bad— Back when David was still part of the world— It feels like so long ago, but he always felt— Frustrated. They have so much power and it's so utterly useless. It's helped them survive, but it couldn't save them from the monster, it couldn't save Mom from her own body. They couldn't use it to help anyone else because their powers have to be a secret and no one can know, not even Amy, because if anyone finds out what they really are, what they're capable of— They'll be taken away and hurt and maybe even killed. And of course that's what would happen. They think he's crazy. The world already wants to take him away and hurt him and lock him up because of that. If they knew he was mutant and thought he was crazy—

But now their powers are gone, just like Divad and Dvd and the monster are gone. And Amahl said he's not crazy anymore, but he's still sick. He's just a sick, powerless human, alone in his body like everyone else. He's finally— 

Normal. Or as close to normal as he'll ever get. 

"That is what I wish as well," Amahl continues. "Together we can be— _Archēgon tēs sōtērias autōn_. The model of their salvation. We can reach into the essence of the world and remove the source of its pain. Stay alive for me, David. Be my patient. Open your mind to me so I may make you whole. Together we will make the whole world better."

That's— All of that is— Extremely ambitious. David would call it insane, but that doesn't really seem appropriate. A cure for madness? Is that even something that can be cured? Can he be cured? What does that even mean?

What does it even mean that he's sick?

"I fear I've given you a great deal to think about," Amahl says, dryly amused. "Perhaps too much. It wasn't my intent to burden you."

"No, I—" David starts. "It's a lot, but— Helping people. Making sure— No one has to go through what I did?"

Amahl nods.

"That's—" David clenches his fists, feels the pull of the stitches. "No one else should— Have to feel what I feel."

"A noble sentiment," Amahl says, warmly. "Then you'll be my patient? My key?"

"I don't know if I can help anyone," David says. "But— If you can use me—" 

His own life doesn't matter one way or the other; there must be thousands, millions of suicidal people Amahl could replace him with. But then— It's an awful thing, that there are so many people who want to die, and David's heard them: in the psych wards, the hospitals, everywhere. He's heard the thoughts of so many people in pain, but— He was always in too much pain himself to do anything to help them. Maybe— Now that the monster's gone, he can help them. Maybe not directly, he's— He's absolutely useless, obviously, but— Amahl wants to help them. His dream sounds— It's a good dream, wanting to help people in pain, make the world better. And for some reason, he's convinced that David is the key to that dream.

After everything Amahl has done to help him— The least David can do is stay alive for him. Listen to him, try to— Open his mind so Amahl can heal him. Maybe there's nothing left to heal, but— Amahl seems to believe David is worth saving. That he's— Valuable. 

He doesn't remember it, but— Amahl saved his life, got the monster out, watched over him and took care of him while their body healed. He even saved David's life again after he—

Amahl's— A lot like Divad and Dvd, now that David thinks about it. Protecting him, keeping him safe, even from himself. And now he wants to heal David's mind, to cure his sickness, to make him— Whole, somehow. 

It must be nice, to be whole. It must be so wonderful.

"Then you will stay alive for me?" Amahl prompts. "You will accept my gift?"

"Yes," David agrees, surrendering himself to whatever he'll have to endure. And that earns him Amahl's widest smile yet.


	60. Day 10: There's always room for cherry pie.

_I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep. A shadow holds me in his keep._

Oliver is bored of waiting for his body to finish sleeping. Jazz helps, but that was never enough even in the ice cube. What truly helps Oliver is poetry.

He can't quite remember them— Fully. The poems. They're all jumbled up, scrambled eggs. He can't even remember who wrote them. But they must have been very important to him once because he remembers them better than anything else. Perhaps they meant something. Perhaps he loved them. They're mostly very sad, the poems. If they were meant to cheer him up, they weren't a very good choice. Still, he finds them fitting.

_Dead eyes see, and dead eyes weep, dead men from the coffin creep, a nightmare of murder in the mind. Murder has the ghost of shame—_

The jazz stops. Oliver opens his eyes to see Cary taking away his headphones.

"Is it morning?" Oliver asks, blandly.

"Close enough," Cary says. "How did you sleep? Or— Not sleep?"

"It was quite dull." Oliver sighs. "You're certain I have to keep doing this?"

"Absolutely," Cary says, firmly. "Sleep is very important. We'll figure out how to help your mind sleep with your body soon. Divad has some very promising ideas."

"Divad? Oh yes, David," Oliver says. Now he remembers.

Cary's concerned face grows even more concerned. 'Perhaps Clark was right about the dementia, too.' "I think it's time we tested your memory. First thing after breakfast. We have to take care of your body and your mind."

Oliver has enjoyed eating again since he left the ice cube. Though mostly he prefers a liquid diet. He hasn't had a real drink in— An indeterminate amount of time. 

"Should I relay David's thoughts?" Oliver asks.

"Let's wait until after we do the memory test. Divad and Dvd can speak to us without that while they're sharing their body."

Over breakfast, everyone who can drink drinks a great deal of coffee. Oliver listens idly to their thoughts. Sleep and dreams seem to be on everyone's mind. David is quite worried about himself, about the part of himself that thinks he doesn't exist. He's angry about having to watch himself commit suicide. That does sound unpleasant. Both parts of him that are awake are absolutely furious, even though one of the parts is pretending not to be.

Even without the relay, Oliver likes listening to David. He has such an interesting mind. Oliver remembers being curious about David from the start. He was so unusual, so incongruous and impossible to ignore. Oliver learned to ignore most things on the astral plane. The vast subconscious is a very muddy place, full of strange and wandering minds, quite unsafe outside of his ice cube. David was quite lucky to be found, and he'd have been much better off if he'd simply stayed with Oliver in the ice cube until the monster went away.

They would have all been better off, frankly. 

And with two more people, they could have formed that barbershop quartet. Actually, thinking about it now, they didn't even need two more people. Perhaps he can convince David to take him up on the offer now. No, that wouldn't work, all three voices have the same range. Unless they make two quartets— Then they could have a competition. That would be pleasant. There's Cary and— He keeps forgetting about Ptonomy, he's far too quiet. He can ask that Clark fellow, and there's plenty more men in the vicinity. Really, it should be a simple matter to gather four tenors, two basses, and two baritones.

"March 5th Street old building plaster apartments in ruin," Oliver recites, "Super he drunk with baritone radio AM nose-sex."

Everyone stares at him.

"Nose sex?" David echoes, baffled.

"Arm laid to rest," Oliver continues, caught up in remembering. "Head back, wide-eyed morning, my song to who listens, to myself as I am."

"What the hell's wrong with him?" David asks Cary.

"Dvd, don't be rude," Cary chides. "Oliver's been through a very difficult time."

"He has detachment syndrome," David reminds himself.

"What does his soul have to do with wacko poetry?" David asks himself.

"I dunno, I kinda like it," Kerry says. 

"It doesn't make any sense," David tells her.

"That's why I like it," Kerry replies. "It's, like, not supposed to make sense. It's—" She searches for a word.

"Evocative?" Cary offers.

"Evocative," Kerry agrees.

"It's called beat poetry," Cary tells them. "Oliver's absolutely passionate about Ginsberg. He's always carried some around with him and loves reciting it. I still remember the opening lines of Howl. 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.'"

"Madness is right," mutters David.

"That's about addiction," David says, not pleased. "The last thing David needs is something to remind him of all that."

"I'm sure David can handle a few lines of beat poetry," Amy assures them. Oliver keeps forgetting she's there, too. And the other one, Lenny. He spent a lot of time with her — an indefinite amount of it — but he wasn't sure who she was and she wasn't either. That seems to have been sorted out now. 

"David's fine," Lenny agrees. "Or he will be if he ever finishes his power nap. I say we drop him back in his body and give him a shake."

"It won't work," David says. "And it's not good to stress him right after he comes back. He only goes away because he has to. He comes back as soon as he can."

"David was mentally exhausted when we kept him from going away," Ptonomy reminds them. "Whether he's here or not, he has to rest. We need to be more careful from now on, keep things from getting to be too much."

"We're not the ones who pushed him too hard," David reminds him. "You tricked us."

"David needed to hear the truth from you," Ptonomy defends. "Today's going to be a lot for him. So whether David is in your system's body or not, he needs someone keep a close eye on him at all times. If one of you can't handle that, the other will have to do it."

"Oh, I got this," David insists. "David's safe with me."

"You're the one who broke him," David reminds himself.

"Only because you broke him first!" David protests. "And you hurt our body!"

"It's fine," David insists. "I'm healing it. Cary scanned us, he said we're fine."

"Oh, if _Cary_ said it," David taunts. 

"Shut up," David warns himself. "Cary actually listens to me and he's helping us. Don't mess this up."

Lenny snaps her fingers. "Yo, Davids," she says, sharply. "I know you're worried but dial it down."

"Davids?" David asks. "Is that your nickname for us?"

"Yeah, it is," Lenny says. "You're the Davids. Got a problem with that?"

David considers this. He's pleased but doesn't want to show it. Then he shrugs. "Eh, it's fine."

Lenny gives Ptonomy a smug look. He rolls his eyes.

"The Davids it is," Ptonomy accepts. "Though we still need to ask David."

"I'm sure he'll be awake soon," Cary assures them, though he's lying to calm them. "In the meantime, Oliver and I are going to do our first round of memory tests."

"Does he remember anything besides wacko poetry?" David asks. 

"Dvd," Ptonomy chides. "He remembers you. He remembers David. That's why he's here and helping us. Don't take your resentment of this situation out on him."

David argues with himself briefly. "Sorry, Oliver," he mutters. He stabs at what's left of his breakfast, sullen. 

"It's quite all right," Oliver assures him. "The motion of change is beautiful, as well as form called in and out of being. Though we're overwhelmed with unpleasant detail."

Everyone looks to Cary for an explanation.

"It means— He wants to help," Cary interprets. "And he understands the pain you're going through."

"Oh," David says. He looks at Oliver, wondering. "You started Summerland."

"Did I? Yes, that does sound familiar," Oliver says. 

"Melanie thought about you a lot. You taught her about telepathy. Do you remember any of that?"

"You want a teacher," Oliver says, knowing it. 

"We know all about our powers," David says, defensive. "We don't need help. We just— Have some questions. You're the only mutant like us, besides—" He thinks angry thoughts. "Anyway, if you're just swiss cheese then forget it."

"The entire universe is a manifestation of one mind," Oliver tells them. "When you're ready to ask, I'll do my best to have an answer."

David looks at him, hopeful and vulnerable. Then he pulls into himself like a turtle into its shell. He wants help but finds the asking painful. He believes he's only ever had himself. He believes love will destroy him. He believes he's going to be forced to hurt the whole world. He's very, very, very afraid. He's trying to be brave for himself, but the two parts of him that are awake are as terrified as the part that believes it doesn't exist.

Harmony and discord. Broken minds in beautiful bodies unable to receive love because of not knowing the self as lovely. Oliver wants to help David make the song of his mind something beautiful. 

David goes suddenly still, and Oliver hears why. "It seems you're waking up," he tells him, even though David is already rushing from the table. Lenny and Amy follow him.

"Okay, we talked about this," Lenny says. She directs David and Amy to sit opposite the part of David that's waking up. David wraps himself in a blanket and then steps out of himself. 

"We're clear," David says. 

"Good, now get back to the table," Lenny says, and heads back herself. "Everybody be cool. Talk about— Poetry or something."

"No more poetry," David groans, but only Oliver hears him. 

Oliver listens while the others talk. The other parts of David listen, too.

David rouses slowly, his mind sluggish, his thoughts hard to lift. When he hid from himself he was overwhelmed by despair and shame and terror. His song was _agitato_ , trills and short staccatos, only drowned out by a deep, thundering roar before it all crashed into silence. Now, as his mind clears, he's a long, tense note of uncertainty, the cautious flute of his senses like a timid child at a pool, testing, braving an inch at a time. 

When he sees Amy, his song stutters, then bursts into glorious joy. He lunges into his body, barely flinching at the pain inside it, and falls into Amy's waiting arms.

" _Amy_ ," David weeps, a cacophony unto himself. 

"I'm here," Amy soothes, as they hold each other tight. "Shh, I'm here."

The other parts of David watch, silent, longing to be the one in David's arms, the one in Amy's. Their songs contrast with David's, similar but dissonant with resentment and love, suppressed and unsuppressed, high and low clashing against each other in waves.

'We have to forgive her,' David tells himself.

'Never,' David thinks back, but he's lying. He wants to forgive Amy but it hurts, it hurts so much. She was the one who promised to always protect them and she put them in that place and left them there to rot. How can they ever trust her again? 'If we trust her, the shit beetle will use her to hurt us again.'

'And if we don't, David won't trust us,' David thinks back. 'Amy is the closest thing he has to us, that's what he remembers. We have to forgive her. Shit, is the relay on? Oliver, is the relay on?'

'Not yet,' Oliver replies. 'It seemed a private moment. But since you asked— I have lost— A great deal, I think. Life is irrelevant, but— Melanie is not. You are not. Perhaps love is not, if you can have it. If it's not— Lost to you.'

Melanie. He can't find her, not the way he is. Sick. He feels another distant pang of grief. It's quite far away, but he recognizes it more easily now. Perhaps staying in his body will help him get better and then he'll be able to find her. And then the pang will go away. He'd quite like that, he thinks. Listening to David's grief is quite enough. 

'You can't read Amy's mind either,' David argues. 'No one can. We don't know what she's up to.'

'It is disconcerting,' Oliver admits. 'The silence. Unnatural.'

'David's the one who listens for us,' David thinks. 'We can only hear each other and— We can't not hear him. The monster— Broke him open. Can you— Fix him?'

'I don't know,' Oliver admits. 'Cary said you can help me sleep with my body. Can you?'

'We don't know,' David admits. 

'We must pool our resources,' Oliver decides. 'With Cary's assistance, of course. He has a great many machines.'

'Cary's okay,' David says, and means it more than he wants to admit.

'He is,' Oliver agrees, and feels— A new pang. It takes him a while to place it. What's the word? Frog? Fondue? No, fondness. He feels fondness for Cary. Interesting. Does he feel fondness for other people? Yes, he feels fondness for David. That's much more pleasant than grief. 

In the loveseat, David has finally held Amy long enough to engage with his surroundings. He looks over at the table. "Lenny?" he asks, staring, cautious. 

"Hey," Lenny says, casually. "Had a good nap?"

"How long—?" David asks. He wonders if he was gone for days. 

"Eh, just one night."

David's relieved. It scares him, the blankness, the absence he finds himself compelled into. He doesn't want it to keep happening. It makes him feel even more vulnerable than he already feels— But— Everything is calm. Amy's here, Lenny's— Relaxed. Everyone's sitting together for breakfast. He wants to be with them. 

David tugs at the blanket around his shoulders and holds it in place with one hand and takes Amy's hand with the other. They come back to the table and everyone shifts so they can sit together. David looks at the other parts of himself and doesn't know what to say.

The other parts of David don't know what to say either. 

David looks at Lenny, still taking in her presence. The sight of her bring back so many memories of Lenny being with him, watching over him, keeping him— Not sane or safe or whole, he was never any of those things, but— He always felt less crazy and scared and broken with her. 

It hurts so much that it hurts to look at her. David just wants to have her back, like he has Amy back. He knows nothing that happened was Lenny's fault. She was just a mask. She came to the desert and saved his life. He trusts her. He knows he can trust her. She's not Amy anymore. She's not anyone but Lenny. 

But there's something wrong. There's something— He can't think about. He can't think about it. So he won't. He just won't. Then it will be okay. Everything will be okay.

He musters a smile for Lenny. She likes it.

"So what did I miss?" David asks, lightly. 

"Eh, not much," Lenny says. "We figured out some boring medical stuff. Turns out we gotta stay in our bodies. All of us. These new bodies are wild, right? Just like the real deal. Wish I could eat, but— You gotta eat for me. Get some cherry pie or something. I hear this place makes great cherry pie."

Cherry pie. David misses cherry pie. It's the perfect food, all that crust and cherries. Since he came back, whenever he felt down, he would go to the cafeteria and have pie or waffles and that made him feel better for a while. 

That's almost all he ate, now that he thinks about it. He needed it, things were so bad, but— That probably wasn't good for him. But things are still really bad. It would help to have— Something. 

"How about we go get you some?" Amy offers. "The five of us."

David isn't really hungry, but— There's always room for cherry pie. "Okay," he says. Leaving the lab— He knows he's still a prisoner but it helps him feel less like a prisoner anyway. 

David notices that the other parts of him still haven't said anything. "I guess you have to come," he says, apologetic. They're all stuck with each other. David should really make that new bedroom for them so they can— He knows now that— He can't fix their system. He can't— 

"It's not all on you," David tells himself. "It's our fault, too. We can't get back what we had, but— You're our David. And we're a system. We just have to keep trying, right?"

"And we're brothers," David adds, firmly, to make himself believe it. "We're brothers."

"Brothers," David echoes, his shame edging back. Trying feels so hard right now. He has so much healing to do and it feels so impossible that he'll be able to do it. But— He's here and he's not alone. He's loved and there's no shame in love. He's strong enough to heal.

The words help. He tells them to himself again. He thinks about Amy and Lenny and cherry pie and— Divad and Dvd. His brothers. Siblings are— They're not always easy to get along with. He's had fights with Amy. They always made up again. He lost Amy for a while. She lost him for a while. Now they're back together. As long as they keep trying— 

They just have to keep trying. That's all they have to do. 

Oliver thinks he'd quite like to have some cherry pie himself. He can't remember if he's ever eaten it before but David certainly makes it sound appealing. "Let's get a table for six," he decides. 

"Eight," Kerry declares. "Hot chocolate was good, I want to try cherry pie." She's excited at the idea that she could have three foods she actually likes to eat and that one of them even involves chewing. She likes the idea of liking the same food as David, just like she and Cary both enjoyed the hot chocolate. She might not enjoy eating but she likes eating with other people, with her friends. Cary said that made the food extra nutritious so it'll probably counteract the sugar. 

"I'll pass," Syd says. "Ptonomy and I have a session." She does have a session, but she doesn't have to have it now. She doesn't want to go. She doesn't want—

"Oh," David says, disappointed. He wants Syd back, too, even though— But no, that's— 

"Then let's go," Lenny says. "Hey, you guys mind if we turn the relay on? You know, so we can all be together."

Part of David didn't even know it was off. The other parts—

'Do we have to?' David whines. 

'I want to be able to speak for myself,' David insists.

'I don't care about that,' David insists. 

'Now who's the liar?' David thinks. 'Just— Stay focused on keeping us safe.'

David relents. "Fine, turn it on."

Oliver begins relaying. Cary's memory test will have to wait. 

"Hey, guess what?" Lenny asks David. "I figured out what to call your system. You're the Davids, get it?"

"The Davids?" David asks. He thinks it's kinda funny but he's not sure Dvd and Divad will like it.

"We like it," David tells himself. "We look the same and we're all parts of David Haller. So we're all Davids. You're a David, too."

"I'm a David?" David echoes. He thinks about that. It's still strange, disconcerting, being— a third of himself. But— That's what he is. He had to accept what he is. "I'm a David." Not just David, but a David. That's— It's easier, somehow. 

And Divad and Dvd, they're Davids, too. They're other parts of him. Of course he can— Get along with himself. That's— Of course they'll be okay. The Davids will be okay. And there'll be cherry pie. Cherry pie and Amy and his David brothers and his friends. Everything will be okay.

§


	61. Day 10: A ghost in a haunted house.

"I guess the garden is our spot for this?" Syd asks. 

"Does that work for you?" Ptonomy asks. "It's good for us to be outside. And I know it's easier for you to have our sessions in private."

Syd shrugs. "It's fine. I know it's not really private. Division 3 is always watching." It's David more than Division 3 that she wants to hide from. Of course, right now David is eating cherry pie in the cafeteria, with his family and friends. Without her.

But that's fine. David should be with the people who can keep him safe. Syd isn't safe for him. She takes a sip from her coffee and lets the mug warm her hands through her gloves. 

“You did a lot of thinking yesterday,” Ptonomy says, starting their session. “Let’s talk about that. I asked you to think about your foundation, the ideas inside them, including the ones you've decided to reject.”

Syd nods.

"How about we start with the rejects?" Ptonomy asks. "Tell me the ideas you don't want to believe."

Syd hesitates. "It's not that I-- Don't want to believe them. It's that they're wrong." When Ptonomy gives her an expectant look, she pushes herself on. "You told David not to put lies into his foundation. I don't want lies in mine either. I don't want to lie to myself. That's not going to help me."

"That's a very absolute way of thinking about it."

"That's how I got used," Syd points out. "If I'd-- Faced my fears instead of lying to myself--" Farouk couldn't have tricked her in the desert. If she hadn't been in denial about being afraid of David, Farouk couldn't have convinced her that he was too dangerous to live. 

"The truth is important," Ptonomy agrees. "But there's a lot of different kinds of truth. Not just between individuals, but within ourselves. Just because an idea doesn't match reality doesn't make it a lie. Just because something is true, that doesn't mean you have to believe it."

Syd gives him a skeptical look.

"Those concepts would be challenging for anyone,” Ptonomy admits. “But you’re capable of understanding them. There’s a reason you’re rejecting them. Black-and-white thinking is part of your BPD."

Syd looks away. She's still not happy about that diagnosis, even if she can't deny it. She did her homework on it. She knows she fits the criteria. She knows that's why she can't control her anger, why she was so afraid of losing David. It's why she lost him.

She's accepted that, now. She lost him. Her David is gone. She killed him.

A wave of grief catches her off-guard and she closes her eyes against it, pushing it back down. 

"You grieved with Divad and Dvd yesterday," Ptonomy says, gentler. "How do you feel now?"

"Awful," Syd admits. "I miss him so much. But I can't--" She swallows. "I know he's gone. He won't be-- Even if he gets better, he can't be who he was. He can't-- Stop being a telepath or-- And I don't want him to-- Change himself for me. I don't want that."

"I'm glad to hear that. So what do you want?"

"I don't know," Syd says, honestly. "I guess-- Just to see if-- We can start over. I still-- I still love him so much, but--" She doesn't want her anger to hurt him. She doesn't want to feel like she has to punish him. She still feels like she has to punish him. "I'm angry. I'm so angry."

She's angry at him for being taken. She's angry at him for changing. She's angry with him for-- For being too weak for her anger. 

"You can't start over with David if you're still holding on to your anger," Ptonomy says. "So talk about it."

Syd shakes her head, reflexive. She doesn't show her anger. She doesn't show any of how she feels to anyone. That's not what she does.

But she knows what will happen if she doesn't change. 

"You know," Ptonomy says, "being the memory guy did a lot for me. It gave me a home and a lot of challenging work. Melanie took me under her wing, just like she did with you, and she helped me work on myself. But at a certain point I started coasting just like you did. All of this has been-- A hell of a wake-up call for all of us. No exceptions. So you need to allow yourself to see that you're not facing this alone."

"I know," Syd says. She does. She's watched everyone go through these-- Moments of crisis, of revelation and change. She's watched them help each other, but--

"I've been doing this thing," Ptonomy says. "A kind of matchmaking. Looking to see who's compatible with who. We need to help each other to get through this, none of us can do it alone. Some of us, I barely had to do anything. Amy, Cary, Kerry, David-- They found each other. This morning, Divad and Dvd made their first steps to becoming part of that family they're building together. Call it-- The Haller-Loudermilks. But then there's the rest of us. You, me, Lenny. We don't have families, not anymore. We're the loners. It's hard for us to trust, to reach out and open ourselves up. The two of us each had Melanie but she didn't share back. Melanie only wanted to share with Oliver."

Syd nods.

"But Lenny surprised me," Ptonomy continues. "Because I genuinely didn't see how she was compatible. I thought the relationship she had with David was-- Situational. They survived together and their relationship was obviously important to both of them, but-- She's very different from him. The Haller-Loudermilks, they're all-- Used to being parts of systems. That's not something that comes naturally to you or me. I thought it wouldn't work for Lenny either. But she proved me wrong. She and David have a system, a system that’s endured. And Divad and Dvd were always a part of that system. Seeing the five of you together yesterday, it made me realize there's another family here. The Clockworks family."

"I don't want to be defined by that place," Syd insists. "I was barely there."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "But Lenny and David and his brothers spent a big part of their lives there. It's defining for them. Call it whatever you want, but don't exclude yourself because they had it worse than you. You were there with them for a year and a year is a long time. If you want to be part of David's life again, start by being part of his families. You already are, if you'll just acknowledge it."

"What about you?" Syd challenges.

"Me? I'm the therapist," Ptonomy says, amused. "But I've been working on my own connections. I've been opening up and reaching out to the people I'm sharing my life with. It's not always easy but it helps a lot. Being in the mainframe has been-- A lot harder than I wanted to admit. It's still hard. But it's a lot easier when I don't try to do everything on my own, when I realize that I don't have to."

"And I don't have to either," Syd says, unable to keep the mocking edge from her voice. "I get it."

"You don't, not yet," Ptonomy says. "But you need to try. If you want to get better, you can't do it alone. You can't do it with just your therapist. You refused to do it with David when you were together. You told David you were angry because you changed and he didn't. Now the situation is reversed. When you changed without him, you felt abandoned. How do you think he'll feel?"

"Maybe I shouldn't change," Syd says, tightly. "Maybe I shouldn't be with him at all. Maybe I should let Division 3 take me out of his life for good."

"Is that why you spent all yesterday punishing yourself?"

"Yes," Syd says, honestly. Lenny called it her pity party and fine, that's what it was. So what? "The David I love is dead. The relationship we had is dead. You know what I feel like, being in that lab? A ghost in a haunted house."

"Then you feel like you're dead?"

"I always have," Syd says, a sharp, painful truth breaking free. "I've never been part of anything. I can't touch and no one can touch me. You wanna talk delusions? It was my delusion that I thought I could be part of something. My relationship with David, Melanie's work? They're both gone, what we had is gone. And the work I was so proud of here? It's a fucking joke because I'm more afraid of David than Clark is."

She remembers cutting herself with the dullest blades-- Not, as David thought, because it felt the worst, but-- Because it was the only way she could feel at all. If the blade was sharp, she barely felt it. She needed to feel but she couldn't touch without pain, without disaster. With a dull blade, she controlled the pain.

"Your fears don't invalidate the good work you've done at Division 3," Ptonomy says. "History is full of imperfect people trying their best to follow an ideal. Ideals are impossible for us to reach, but reaching for them is what makes the world better. The people whose lives you saved? The laws and minds you helped change? That's what matters. And you've always been part of things, Syd. Just like David, you've always been part of the world and everything in it."

It's been years since Syd cut herself, but she wants to do it now. She wants to punish herself so badly. She wants to control the pain so it can't control her.

"Talk to me," Ptonomy urges. "I can't read your mind but I know you're suffering. Let the pain out."

Syd says nothing. She can't.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, and pauses, thinking. "Then tell me your foundation. As it is now."

Syd breathes in, holds her breath. Lets it out. Again. She looks down at her open notebook.

"Pain makes us strong. Life is war and I have to survive. I need help. I'm a victim. I'm not capable of love and I don't deserve it."

"Okay," Ptonomy echoes, thinking. "There's a lot of pain in your foundation. You hold on to that pain, you use it to protect yourself. You feel that's what makes you strong, that anger makes you strong."

"Yes."

"That's what you taught David. That love makes us weak."

"No, I-- I took that part out," Syd says. "It was wrong."

"Why was it wrong?"

"Because-- The problem isn't love," Syd says, sharply. "I'm the problem. It's me. I'm not capable of love and I don't deserve it."

"Why not?"

Syd huffs. "Because-- I hurt people. I hurt David, I hurt my mother, I hurt-- A lot of people. You know what I've done."

"You have hurt people," Ptonomy agrees. "You've made some terrible mistakes. That doesn't mean you don't deserve love. You were willing to forgive David for hurting you. Are you saying you can't give that compassion to yourself?"

Syd-- Stops.

"What is it?" Ptonomy asks.

"I haven't," Syd admits, and she can only say it because David isn't here, because she's accepted he's gone. "I haven't forgiven him. I-- I just wanted to have him back so-- I tried to make myself believe it. But it didn't stick."

"Syd," Ptonomy says, gentler.

"That's why I'm still so angry," Syd admits, to herself and him. "I kept telling myself it wasn't his fault, that he didn't hurt me, but-- God, he hurt me so much. He raped me. He fucking raped me."

"He did," Ptonomy says, regretful. "It was an awful thing he did to you. No matter what the circumstances or his culpability, he did an awful, awful thing to you. He violated your mind and then had sex with you when you couldn't consent."

"What if I can't forgive him for that?" Syd asks, wanting to know.

"Then you can't," Ptonomy says. "But you have to be honest with yourself and David about all of that. You can't pretend to forgive him because you'll just keep punishing him without meaning to."

"What about Farouk?"

"What about him?" Ptonomy asks. "As Dvd says, fuck the shit beetle. These are our lives, not his. We have to make the best choices for ourselves. I don't think David has any expectations of your forgiveness. He obviously feels terrible about what he did to you and doesn't want to hurt you again. Neither Division 3 or David would stop you from leaving if that's what you want. But don't leave with that unresolved, because if you do, Farouk will bring you back and make you resolve it his way."

Does she want to leave?

Does she want to stay?

Can she forgive David? Can she forgive herself?

"I don't know," Syd admits. "And David-- How can I talk to him about this now?"

"Maybe he needs to talk about it, too," Ptonomy suggests. "He's been deeply dissociating from his entire past. Not just the parts he can't remember but the parts he can. There are plenty of things David has lost and can't get back, but there's a lot he just can't bear to hold on to. He needs to make peace with what happened and so do you. There's a lot that David has to get through, but-- This is important for both of you. I'll try to find a time for you two to talk, but you'll need to be ready for it. Can you be ready?"

Syd considers the question. "I can," she decides. She doesn't know if any good will come of it, but-- She needs to talk to David. She needs to be honest with him so she can be honest with herself.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "Syd-- Even if you choose to leave, that doesn't change the work you need to do on yourself. That foundation you have right now? If you don't change it, it's going to keep hurting you. You don't deserve that. The people you're with, whoever they are, they don't deserve it either. Your BPD isn't about David. It's about you."

Syd sighs. "I know."

"That reminds me. We're going to talk to Cary and he's going to give you some medications."

"Why?" Syd asks, taken aback.

"BPD isn't just a trauma disorder. It's not just environmental. You're genetically predisposed to it, just like your mother probably was. You don't have mutant emotional regulation and that means the only way we can balance your chemistry is through medication. The good news is that the right meds at low doses can drastically improve your life. They can stabilize your mood and reduce your aggression. But it's going to take some trial and error to figure out what works best."

"What's the point if the world's going to end?" Syd asks, genuinely wanting to know. 

"We're not going to let anything happen to David," Ptonomy assures her. "We're not going to let Farouk use him. This is a dangerous situation but we can't let that stop us from living our lives. I'm done being his victim. Are you?"

Is she?

It surprises her that she doesn't know. She doesn't want to be used again, absolutely not. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. She doesn't want to end the world.

But-- There's something in her that feels-- 

"Syd?" Ptonomy prompts, concerned.

"I don't know," Syd admits. "Maybe-- It's in my foundation, right? I'm a victim."

"That's what you believe now," Ptonomy agrees. "But that doesn't mean it's what you should believe. Those ideas you've written down, it's important to be critical of them. Don't take them at face value, don't assume they're right just because you believe them. Those are other people's ideas and they were put into your head when you didn't have a choice. You have a choice now. You've worked very hard to make yourself believe them, but-- I think deep down, you've always been trying to reject the ones you know aren't yours. But it's hard work and you didn't have the right help."

"Do I have it now?" Syd asks.

"I hope so. I want to help you, Syd. Not to save the world, but because you deserve to be happy. You're more than your pain. You're not a ghost. Sometimes we need help figuring out how to be in our bodies and live in them. It's normal to need help and it's healthy to accept it. How about I give your foundation a little help?" He taps the notebook. "That line, 'I need help'? What do you think about changing that?"

"To what?"

"How about-- I can accept help?"

Syd considers that. "I can accept help," she says aloud. It's-- It feels less like a judgement. 'I need help' is a judgement. 'I can accept help' is-- It's something she can do. 

She crosses out 'I need help' and writes 'I can accept help.' 

"How does that feel?" Ptonomy asks.

"Better," Syd admits. This session was hard, very hard, but-- She actually does feel a little bit better. Talking to David will be hard but she needs to be honest with him. She's not happy about going back on meds but-- If it helps, if it really helps, she's willing to do it. She does trust Cary to find the right medication for her. He knows what it’s like to be forced to accept the wrong treatment. 

"Excellent," Ptonomy says. "And Syd? Even if you do leave, we'll still help you. You're our friend. You could go halfway around the world and we'd still help you."

Syd meets his eyes. She hasn't really looked him in the eyes much, with all of this. She was always afraid of what she would see there. But she doesn't see anger or judgement. She sees worry and caring.

"I'm sorry," she says, unprompted. "For being-- Cruel. To you."

"Apology accepted," Ptonomy says. "I'm sorry for the times I've been cruel to you."

"Apology accepted," Syd returns.


	62. Day 10: Senior officer Busker reporting for duty.

David reads the flyer Kerry gave him. “Detachment syndrome?” So this is what Lenny was talking about. 

“This all comes down to disembodiment,” Cary explains. “There are a number of potential ramifications and the affected are— You, Dvd, and Divad. Oliver. Ptonomy, Amy, Lenny, and even Melanie once we find her.”

David is glad they insisted that he sit down for this. Great, another diagnosis, that’s just what he needs. And everyone else has it, too? “So what does this mean?”

Cary exchanges a glance with Ptonomy. “There’s no immediate danger. Amy, Lenny, and Ptonomy are protected by the mainframe and their new bodies. We’re working on ways to treat Oliver, and as for Melanie— Hopefully a simple re-embodiment will be enough.”

David senses a very large ‘but’ coming, and he isn’t disappointed. 

“But,” Cary continues, “Without their living bodies to return to—” He stops, starts again. “Division 3 is working on a solution.”

David hardly knows where to start. “How long?” He asks, because— That’s what you’re supposed to ask when someone’s going to die.

“No one’s dying,” Ptonomy assures him. “We’re alive, just disembodied, and there’s no evidence that will change. But eventually— We’ll start to drift like Oliver.”

David looks to Amy, sitting beside him, holding his hand. He just got her back and now— She’s going to forget him, forget— She’s the one who remembers what he can’t and she’s going to forget. 

“David,” Amy starts, and he sees that she wants to make this better for him. He can see it on her face. But that’s not really her face and they’re trying to not hide their pain from each other. “I’m— Very scared,” she admits. “Before I got my new body, I was already starting to— Fade away. But I’m better now, I truly am.”

“For how long?” David asks again.

“We just don’t know,” Amy admits. “Cary’s going to test us, track our condition. All of this is— It’s brand new for everyone.”

“We got this covered,” Lenny assures him. “The three of us, we’re okay. We’re backed up. So whatever happens, we’re okay, you got it?”

Backed up. They’re in the mainframe so they’re safe. They’re alive and they’re safe. 

“I know you want to focus on us right now,” Ptonomy says, “but this affects you, too. It affects Divad and Dvd. The three of you need to co-exist in your system’s body as much as possible.”

David looks to his brothers. Is he hurting them, forcing them to—

“Don’t,” Divad warns, sharply. “That is one hell of a dangerous thought and it’s not gonna help anyone. This is more of a precaution than anything else, we’re fine. Sharing will help our system heal. We just need to share and there’ll be nothing to worry about.”

“That’s why we’re going to start on your possession trauma today,” Ptonomy explains. “We can’t help you remember your true past until your system is stable. So we need to focus on your memories as they are now.”

“Okay,” David says, but none of this feels remotely okay. He doesn’t want to think about— The things Farouk did to him, the monstrous victim he was turned into. He wants to be his own David. 

“You are your own David,” Ptonomy assures him. “But ignoring what happened won’t make it go away.”

“We’re gonna take this slow,” Lenny promises. “We don’t want you going away. You don’t want that, we don’t want that. So we’re gonna stick together just like we always do. We’re on the cruise ship Mental Health, right? Ptonomy’s the captain, Cary’s the engineer? I’m the cruise director. Senior officer Busker reporting for duty.”

David feels his panic recede, and not just because Divad keeps him steady. Lenny was always good at making things feel— Manageable.

“Hey, we want positions, too,” Dvd insists. “I’m head of security.”

“Guess that makes me the head doc,” Divad says, smirking at his own joke. 

“Hilarious,” Lenny drawls. “Point is, we’re gonna keep you safe and steer around the icebergs. But they’re sneaky so you have to be our lookout. You have to tell us what’s coming up.”

“Don’t you have the relay for that?” David asks. 

“The relay wasn’t enough yesterday. And we have to treat Oliver, too,” Ptonomy says. “He’s still going to help as much as he can, and he can hear you even if he isn’t relaying. But he’s our patient, too.”

Of course. Just when David accepts having his every thought listened to for his own good, he has to give it up. 

“The relay is a powerful therapeutic tool,” Ptonomy says. “But we can’t rely on it. The good thing is that you already have a way to share your thoughts with us. You just have to say them. I know you’ve been working on that. And if you’re not in your body, you can share with your brothers so they can talk to us. Remember your plan, to take turns? We’re going to do that, too. Divad and Dvd need their sessions and they need time in your system’s body. It’s a lot to balance but that’s why we’re going to work together and take it slow.”

David rubs at his face. “This is— A lot,” he agrees. And they haven’t even started yet. 

“Yeah,” Lenny agrees. “But that’s how we’re gonna get all the Davids better together.”

David tries to imagine dealing with all of that but it’s just so much. And Amy— She’s sick. She doesn’t have a body. Ptonomy and Lenny don’t have bodies. 

“We’ll be okay,” Amy promises. “The Admiral will find a solution. You saved his life, David. He’s very grateful and he won’t let anything happen to us.”

The insanity creature. That’s right. All of that happened so fast, and Ptonomy’s death was— But the attack was meant for the Admiral. David stopped it. That’s— It helps to remember he did something right, even when everything was falling apart. He isn’t just— Farouk’s victim.

He needs to do this. He needs to heal so he can be strong, so Farouk can’t use him ever again. He’s his own David, not Farouk’s. Sharing his— _Their_ body and facing his past will help him be strong, help his system be strong.

“Yeah, okay,” David says, rallying. “I can do this.” He looks to his brothers. “We can do this.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Ptonomy says, warmly. “I want you to take some time and relax. Be with Amy, with Lenny, with whoever you want to be with. I’ll help Cary with Oliver. When the relay’s back, we’ll get started.”

David takes a deep breath, lets it out. He can do this. 

Cary, Kerry, and Ptonomy go to work with Oliver, and the relay goes off. David looks at Lenny, at Divad and Dvd, at Amy. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells them. “All of this— I wish I could—“ This stupid crown. If he didn’t have to wear it— “Maybe The Admiral would— I could help if he just let me try. He— I’d let Cary put the crown back on, I swear.”

“Believe me, I tried to tell him that,” Lenny says. “But your treatment has to be our priority. That’s what the numbers say. You gotta get better.”

“So I don’t end the world,” David says.

“You got it,” Lenny agrees. “We’re not gonna let that happen. It’s our job to keep you safe, not the other way around. So the crown stays on.”

David stands up and hugs Lenny tight. Lenny was never a hugger, but— He can’t help it, he has to. 

“Oof,” Lenny grunts, patting his back. “Okay, big guy.”

“You’re alive,” David says, because he still can't quite believe that she is. So much happened, he gave up hoping there was anything left of her to save. When she came back he wanted her to be real, he wanted to believe that something of Lenny and Amy survived. And they did. They’re both alive and themselves and they’re doing everything they can to save him. Maybe there were times when they gave up on each other, but— They kept trying. They’re all here and alive so they can keep trying. “You’re both alive.” They don’t just look alive, they really are alive. 

He lets her go, and Lenny visibly collects herself. “Yeah, who knew, right?”

“I wish—“ David starts. “I’m so sorry I let you—“ She killed herself in front of him, over and over, begging for his help. And he just turned away. “Lenny, I’m so sorry for— All of this.”

“It’s been shit,” Lenny says, blunt as ever. “Not gonna lie. But you didn’t do anything to me. It was him. And you’re gonna get better so we can stop him. You’re not the one who wants to end the world, that’s him. We’re stronger than him and we’re not his victims.”

David really wants to believe that.

He steps forward to hug Lenny again. 

“Okay, that’s enough.” Lenny firmly pushes him back. “You’ve got plenty of huggers here. Go hug one of them.”

David steps back, abashed, but when he turns Amy is waiting. “You can always hug me,” she says, pulling him into her arms. He holds her back, impossibly grateful that he can. 

“I don’t want you to forget,” David says, tightly. He just got her back, he can’t lose her again, he can’t lose her to some— Stupid disease when she survived—

“Then put everything you have into getting better,” Amy says, letting him go. “And then— We’ll find a way to make everything else better.”

They’re right, he knows they’re right. As much as he wants to— Rush out and save everyone— That didn’t work out so well last time. Playing the hero. It didn’t work out with his brothers, either. It didn’t work out with Syd. 

God, Syd. He’s been so busy with everything that he’s barely talked to her for days, since— She told him about her session with Dvd and Divad. And then— That was a total disaster. She’s probably afraid of upsetting him again. He hates being so— Fragile. He’s always been fragile and he’s always hated it. Or— That’s what he remembers. But Divad and Dvd treat him like he’s always been fragile, too, so that’s probably true in both his histories. But then he did have a monster in his head, keeping him from ever healing enough to be strong.

Syd’s sitting alone, reading— Not a book this time. Printouts. He can’t make out the text but it looks technical.

“Do you think I should—“ he asks, uncertain. Ptonomy said he should be with whoever he wants to be with, but— It’s true he’s been busy, but every time he so much as looked in her direction she looked away. She didn’t even come with them for cherry pie. She told him she likes cherry pie now, but— It wasn’t really about the pie.

“Talk to Syd?” Lenny finishes for him, and not quietly. Syd looks up at the sound of her name. “Sure, why not? Go say hi.”

David gives Lenny a glare for that. Now they have to talk. Some cruise director she is. This is obviously her revenge for the hug.

David mentally braces himself and walks over. Syd’s sitting on a loveseat so he sits on the sofa. He leaves— A lot of personal space between them. Even though she keeps trying to touch him— 

“Hey,” Syd says, and— She doesn’t seem actively displeased by his presence, so that’s a start.

“Um, hey,” David says. “I just— I’ve got a break, apparently, so—“ He doesn’t know what to say. When he doesn’t know what to say these days, he just apologizes, because he’s fucked up his entire life and every single relationship in it so he really can’t go wrong with an apology. “I’m sorry about— The other day.”

“Oh,” Syd says, in soft surprise. “That was really my fault. I should have let you rest. I’m sorry, too.”

There’s an awkward silence. David can’t deal with it.

“So this whole detachment thing,” he tries. “I can’t believe— I mean, Oliver was pretty weird when I found— When he found me. I guess— I won’t be astral projecting all the time when this is over. I’m gonna miss it, but— I don’t want to—“ God, Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy. They’re— No, he has to hold himself together. He can’t keep falling apart every time he talks to Syd. 

“It’s scary stuff,” Syd says. “Cary thinks I can help. Because of my powers. I’m— I might be immune, or— Extremely resistant.”

“Wow,” David says, genuinely. “Is that why, when we switched—“

“Why you felt like me for days?” Syd says. “Looks like it. But I always feel like me. So maybe that will help with everyone else.”

“That would be— Amazing,” David says. Syd’s always been amazing but— If she can help save everyone, that would be— 

“David,” Syd says, shifting to a serious tone. “We need to talk.”

They both wince.

“Maybe not the best choice of words,” Syd admits. “I know things have been— Overwhelming for you. I didn’t want to get in the way. But— If now's a good time—“

David nods. He doubts he’ll be in any better shape once they start digging into his possession trauma. He’s already trying not to think about how nervous he is.

“I’m sorry, but— I lied, before. About forgiving you. I haven’t forgiven you and I don’t know if I can.”

“Oh.”

“And— I have BPD. Borderline personality disorder. That’s why I get— Angry at you. I lied because I didn’t want to lose you, but— I kept punishing you for— A lot of things. I don’t want to do that.”

David tries to take all that in and fails. “Could we go back to— You have BPD? I thought—“

“And antisocial,” Syd says. “And haphephobia.”

“Are you trying to collect more than me?” David asks, half in jest. “Because if you’re immune to detachment there’s no way you’re gonna win this.”

Syd actually manages a half a smile for that. He missed her smile. He misses her. He misses— But it doesn’t matter what he misses, what he wants. He knows it can never matter again, ever. He hasn’t forgiven himself and— Apparently Syd hasn’t forgiven him either. So they’re in agreement about that.

They both start speaking at the same time, and then they both stop. 

“You go first,” David insists.

“No, I said a lot,” Syd says. “You go. What were you going to say?”

David really hates this. He hates— Having to go over all of this again when there’s no point. He hurt Syd unforgivably, end of story. 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Dvd mutters. 

“What?” David asks, then turns back to Syd. “Sorry, Dvd said something.”

“You said we did that to you,” Dvd reminds him. “You said that what we did to Syd was the same as what Divad and I did to you. So if you’re writing yourself off as unforgivable for that, how do you think that makes us feel?”

“Um.”

“Yeah, _um_ ,” Dvd mocks. “Go on, relay that to Syd.”

“I’m not gonna—“

Dvd leans over him menacingly. “Relay.”

David huffs. “Fine. Dvd wants me to relay for him. He said to tell you that I can’t write myself off as unforgivable if it means writing my brothers off as unforgivable.”

“Good,” Dvd declares. “Now tell her that she has to forgive you so you’ll forgive us.”

“I can’t say that!”

“Relay,” Dvd warns. “Or when I’m in our body I’ll do it myself.”

David turns back to Syd, helpless. “This isn’t me, this is Dvd. He said you have to forgive me so I’ll forgive them. Obviously you don’t have to— This is— I don’t know why he’s doing this. What I did has nothing to do with them.”

Syd gives him a considering look. “I know for a fact that making me forget was Dvd’s idea.”

“Yes but—“

“What did they do to you?”

“They— They lied to me. They manipulated me because— They were afraid if I knew the truth— They were trying to help me, protect me, but— I had a right to know. I had a right to— Decide for myself, even if I was— And I told them, I told them that’s what we did wrong with you.”

Syd takes that in. “David?”

“Yeah?”

“You know that Dvd is also you. His feelings are also your feelings. So maybe he’s making you talk about this because— Even if the you part of you isn’t ready to forgive yourself, the him part of you is. He knows you need to.”

“That’s—“ David thinks about that. “But you just said—“

“I haven’t forgiven you,” Syd says. “But I still think you need to forgive yourself.”

David runs his hand back through his hair. “This is— I can’t—“

“You know what?” Syd says. “I think you have forgiven yourself, but you’re too ashamed to admit it.”

David stares at her. “That’s— No, that’s—“

“You figured out what you did wrong. You learned your lesson. You’ve obviously processed it enough to recognize that pattern of behavior and try to avoid it. That’s what forgiving ourselves is. It’s accepting our mistakes, learning from them and moving on. But you won’t let yourself move on because— You’re David Haller’s shame.”

“Okay, she’s good,” Dvd admits.

“But— How can I forgive myself if you can’t forgive me?” David asks.

“That’s why Dvd said what he did. Because that’s what you believe. You’re— Asking me to tell you how to feel, to decide for you if you deserve forgiveness or not. But that’s not my decision, it's yours. If you don’t want to be treated like you’re incapable of making decisions, then you need to stop making other people make them for you.”

David leans back, reeling. How did the conversation even get to this point? “But I’m sick.”

“Is that a diagnosis or a crutch?”

David gapes at her. So does Dvd. At the edge of his vision, David sees Divad watching them.

“So what do you want, David?” Syd asks. “Do you want to be sick or do you want to get better?”

“Better, but—“

“And do you want to be your own David or someone else’s?”

“Mine, but—“

“You’ve already forgiven yourself. Are you going to keep lying to yourself? You just said you didn’t want to lie to yourself. So what do you want?”

David is absolutely stunned. That’s all— But— How did she— He looks to Dvd but he’s equally stunned. He looks to Divad, but Divad isn’t reacting at all.

“I guess— I want to forgive myself?” David tries. He still feels— Ashamed of that. He’s David Haller’s shame. But he’s so tired of being ashamed. He’s tired of being— Not a person. Judging himself— Worthless and— Garbage and— He doesn’t want to feel that way when he has so many people who love him. He doesn’t want to make their love worthless. That would hurt them so much and he doesn’t want to hurt them. 

He can’t just— Make the decision and stop how he feels. He knows that. He’s felt so worthless for so long, and it seems he did even before he forgot so much. He accepted what the world told him, but he doesn’t want to accept it anymore. And if he can forgive himself for hurting Syd— Maybe he can forgive himself for— Existing. For being alive. For not killing himself when he had the chance. He can’t remember— Not feeling like he deserves to die.

“David?” Syd calls, concerned. 

“Um.” David wipes at his eyes. “I guess— I never— Forgave myself before. For anything. It’s—“ He swallows, wipes his eyes again. “It’s, um— Kind of awful.”

“It’s not supposed to be awful,” Syd says. “You should feel better.”

David shrugs helplessly. “What does it feel like for you?”

Syd considers this. Then she frowns. “I don’t know. I— Can’t remember ever forgiving myself for anything.”

David frowns “But you’re not— You don’t want to—“ When Syd looks confused, he forces himself to finish. “You’re not suicidal.”

“No.”

“Then— What did you do when you did something wrong?”

Syd looks very thoughtful. “I guess— I decided that I didn’t.”

Now David is confused. “You just— Decided?”

Syd nods. She looks to the side, around where Dvd is standing. “Looks like we have that in common, Dvd. We both decided to blame the world instead of ourselves.”

Dvd scowls. “Lady, I am nothing like you. Tell her that.”

David sighs. “Dvd says he’s nothing like you.”

Syd’s reaction is— To smile. It’s not a happy smile. “I doubt Ptonomy will agree with you."

Dvd scowls again and stomps off. He scowls at the room in general, then goes over to where Cary and Kerry and Ptonomy are working with Oliver, probably to scowl at them.

David— Honestly has no idea what to make of any of that. “Sorry about that,” he says, because apparently Dvd is also David Haller’s inexplicable rudeness.

“It’s okay.” Syd’s smile softens into something kinder. “It’s interesting, talking to Dvd. It helps me understand you better. If the offer’s still open— Maybe I could be therapy buddies with your system, and not just you?”

“I guess,” David says, and looks to Divad, who’s still watching them, silent and unreadable. “You’ll have to ask them. We’ll be sharing our body so— You can talk to them then, if there’s time.”

“I will,” Syd says. “You do want to be therapy buddies, right? Because I don’t want you to do it just because I asked.”

“Didn’t I ask you?” David says, lightly, but she has a point. He knows he has certain— Boundary issues. Like not having any. Farouk broke him in a lot of ways. David— Isn’t sure how to deal with that. It’s— A lot like trying to figure out what’s real. He isn’t good at that either. 

God, he’s really— Sometimes he doubts he’ll ever get the crown off. He doubts he’ll ever be stable enough for Division 3 to trust him. A hugely powerful mutant who doesn’t know what’s real and trusts too easily? The odds of his release must be— Infinitesimal. But even if he’ll be a prisoner for the rest of his life, he doesn’t want to be— A prisoner of himself, of his pain. Even if he never gets his outside powers back— He can at least try to be happy as he is now. As a relatively powerless, relatively normal person, with only a dozen or so mental illnesses and some harmlessly internal mutant abilities. That feels like— It's probably the best case scenario for someone as damaged as him. Maybe Cary will figure out how to make a crown that doesn’t hurt.

There he goes again, feeling all the wrong things. He should be happy that’s even a remote possibility. It should be enough that he has so many people risking so much to keep him alive and help him heal. He always felt like— He could never fit in, never be normal. He was too sick, and then— Too powerful, and then both. If the best he can do is— Letting himself be turned down to an acceptable level of different— Then surely that’s what he should want. He shouldn’t— want things he can’t have. He absolutely shouldn’t think he deserves more than he’s given. 

Like wanting to be with Syd. Even if he’s somehow managed to stumble into forgiving himself— She said she can’t forgive him. And he can’t subject her to— He can’t torture her that way. 

“No,” he says, before he can guilt himself into changing his mind.

“Oh.” Syd’s surprised, she didn’t expect that.

“You can still ask Dvd and Divad,” David says, because they’re people, they have the right to decide that for themselves. “But if you can’t forgive me—“ He sounds so selfish, he’s so selfish. It shouldn't matter if she forgives him, she has every right to be angry, to hate him forever, she should hate him, he doesn’t understand why she’s talking to him at all. But he’s angry. He’s angry that she won’t forgive him, even though she shouldn't ever forgive him. He’s unforgivable, as a person, even though— He somehow forgave himself. Accidentally, like— He accidentally helped Division 3 get better and accidentally saved the Admiral’s life. They’re not things he meant to do, they don’t count against— What he is.

David wishes the relay was on, but it isn’t. He has to say what he wants, what he needs, what he thinks. He has to ask for help when his thoughts hurt him, which means he has to tell them to someone. But he feels so ashamed of— Everything. Existing. Being alive. Not killing himself when he had the chance. And he’s angry that he’s ashamed and— Ashamed that he’s angry.

“Hey.” It’s Lenny. “Oliver says Dvd says you need a save.”

“From me?” Syd asks, offended.

“Mostly from himself,” Lenny says. “But yeah. Apparently it’s feels awful to hear that your ex doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive you. Maybe work on that before you ask him to trust you.”

Syd doesn’t like that. She gets up and walks straight out of the lab.

“I don’t understand,” David says, tightly. “She was never— In Clockworks, she didn’t—“ Syd wasn’t— Hard, there. Not that she was ever soft, but ever since he got back, she’s been so hard all the time. She’s been angry and confusing and— She used to make him feel better, but now—

“Syd’s in the middle of some stuff,” Lenny says. “She’s not gonna stop punishing you until she forgives you. And— Syd’s not great with forgiveness.”

“I’m not either,” David admits.

“Hey, that’s what therapy’s for, right? All that processing shit. It's so you can learn and move on. Kinda sucks, but it's better than torturing yourself.”

“Therapy’s torture, too,” David says, reflexively.

“It used to be,” Lenny says. “But it’s not anymore because I’m not gonna let anyone torture you, including these chuckleheads. If Ptonomy gets out of line, you think I won’t give you a save?”

“I thought Ptonomy is the captain.”

“Like I have any respect for authority.”

David has to admit that Lenny has zero respect for authority. 

“I signed up for this because someone’s gotta keep you safe, and no one here knows this shit better than me. No one else knows the monster and the inside of your busted head.”

“Divad and Dvd do,” David points out.

“Yeah, and they’re part of your busted head,” Lenny replies. “They’re you, so I’m keeping them safe, too, whether they like it or not. They can consider it me returning the favor.”

“What favor?”

Lenny hesitates. “The favor of keeping your sorry ass alive.”

David can’t help but huff at that, amused despite himself. “Keeping me alive is— A lot of work.”

“You’re a full time job for a lot of people,” Lenny says. “You single-handedly got this recidivist junkie employed.”

“Division 3 is paying you for this?”

“Fuck yeah they’re paying me,” Lenny declares. “Double for danger duty plus overtime. I don’t come cheap. If I gotta work for a bunch of fascists you bet I’m gonna milk them.”

David thinks of something that surprisingly he never thought of before. “Are they paying me? Or— Were they?”

“You don’t know?”

“I have no idea,” David admits. “I woke up here and— They said to stop Farouk. Syd had my clothes, I went to the cafeteria to eat. Everything was— Maybe there's a paycheck somewhere?”

“Let senior officer Busker take care of it,” Lenny says, a gleam in her eyes.


	63. Day 10: Oliver used to have such a brilliant mind.

Once Oliver is seated and Kerry has finished attaching the electrodes, Cary starts calibrating. Normally he would explain what's about to happen, but— This feels like a good opportunity for Kerry. "Kerry, why don't you explain what we're testing?"

"Oh!" Kerry says, pleased. "Sure!" She gives Oliver and Ptonomy a nervous look, then rallies. "We need a baseline for Oliver's different kinds of memory. Memory's actually— Okay, first there's sensory memory. That's automatic in response to sensory input. Then there's short term memory. We can only hold, like, five chunks of data in short term memory. Long term memory's where it gets complicated. There's— Procedural memory, muscle memory. We remember how to do things, like punching, but— It's like our bodies remember without us. The memories we can actually remember are— There’s semantic memory. That's facts, like— Knowing all the kinds of memory. I'm really good at semantic memory because Cary taught me a lot. But the other kind, episodic, autobiographical memory— I don't have a lot of that." She turns sad, then rallies. "Like David. Like you, Oliver." 

"Precisely," Cary agrees, seeing that Kerry needs support. "Of course, the three of you have very different reasons for your— Lack of history. Kerry simply needs to continue having new experiences." He gives her a smile and she smiles back. "David's amnesia is complex. And as for yours, Oliver— First we have to figure out how each of your different kinds of memory are working. Then we can track your progress and start targeting the types of memory that need the most help."

"There's other kinds, too," Kerry adds. "Recognition versus recall. Flashbulb memories. Visual memory. If you can make new memories. Oh, topographical memory!"

"I don't think we'll need to test Oliver's sense of geographic orientation just yet," Cary says. "All right, calibration sorted. Kerry, can you test Oliver's sensory and short-term memory?"

Kerry picks up a light pen and stands in front of Oliver. "I'm going to draw letters and you need to figure out what they are and remember each letter. It's like an eye chart but for your brain. Ready?"

"Ready," Oliver confirms. He watches as Kerry writes on the air.

"Did you remember them?" Kerry asks when she finishes. 

"D H J B F," Oliver recalls.

"Excellent," Cary says, pleased to see that the basics are functioning. "Try to remember those letters. I'll ask for them again. That will help us test your ability to make new semantic memories. Can you remember them now?"

Oliver hesitates. "D H... I think there was an F?"

"Oh dear," Cary says, and tries to stay positive. "Well, nowhere to go but up. Try to remember as much as you can. Obviously you have some ability to retain semantic knowledge but isolated information is the hardest to retain. Like a new telephone number. In one ear and out the other."

Oliver visibly concentrates. 

"Let's move on to muscle memory," Cary says. "I haven't seen you have any trouble walking or speaking, at least in terms of the physical aspects. But you have been very still. Do you feel any discomfort when you move? Unsteadiness?"

"It's different now," Oliver says. "Moving."

"How so?"

"It was easy in the ice cube," Oliver says. "I danced quite a lot. I felt the need to keep— Moving. Moving was important." He frowns, apparently able to recognize a memory but not recall it.

"But it's not easy now?" Cary prompts.

"It requires— Concentration. I don't quite fit."

Cary ponders this. "Perhaps after twenty-one years of disembodiment— Your mind's sense of physical coherence drifted from the condition it was in when you left your body. Your mind's muscle memory no longer matches the muscle memory in your body. Two versions. It must take a great deal of effort to reconcile those." He brightens. "But the good news is that as with Kerry's experiential memories, the best treatment is to make new muscle memories as you are now. Physical exercise, fine motor skills. Less stillness, more movement."

"If I must," Oliver says, unenthused.

"I'm gonna help you with that," Kerry says, confidently. "It'll be fun!"

"Can you tell me those letters again?" Cary asks.

Oliver hums with thought. "F. And a C? No, not a C..."

"And how many letters did Kerry write?"

"Five?" It's correct, but Oliver sounds uncertain. "Yes, I believe it was five."

Cary reminds himself to stay focused on the work. Now is not the time to get upset. But Oliver used to have such a brilliant mind. He was so quick and— It's no wonder Cary didn't want to admit to himself how much Oliver has— Decayed. "Let's test your experiential memory. There are many phases to a person's life. Childhood memories can be difficult for anyone to recall. Adult memories are typically clear. You also have twenty-one years of disembodied memories that aren't present in your body, and then another year of memories that formed once you were embodied again. Let's start from the beginning. Do you remember your childhood? Your parents?"

Oliver tries. "Not especially."

"Maybe some memory prompts would help, like a photo album?" Ptonomy suggests. 

"That is a good idea," Cary says, adding that to his notes. "It didn't work with David because those memories were physically removed. He can't remember no matter how hard he tries. But Oliver's pre-disembodiment memories should all be present and accessible. Perhaps like the muscle memory, the version in Oliver's mind has changed or faded so that— The necessary connections aren't there. It's made his memories— isolated, like the letters. The memories that still have connections, those are the ones that he can still recall."

"So Oliver can remember?" Kerry asks, excited.

"I believe he can," Cary says. "And the more connections are made, the easier it should be for the other memories to become accessible again. Sleep is essential to memory function. We really must find a way to get his mind to sleep with his body again. Ah, but let's continue. Oliver, do you remember Summerland?"

"The name is familiar," Oliver says. "David asked me about it. He wants to pool our resources."

Cary frowns. "You mean Divad? Or Dvd?"

"David," Oliver insists. "Or— Part of him. He doesn't want to hear himself think."

"Which part of him?" Ptonomy asks.

"All the parts."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, considering that. "Oliver, you said you remember helping people. That's why you're helping us with David."

"Yes," Oliver says. "His warring thoughts. His fear. They're quite familiar. Comforting."

"You helped many people with similar problems," Cary says. "Hearing their thoughts— Those must have made— Powerful memories for you. Now, with the emotional impact blunted, the memories distant— They've become— Soothing. Listening to David's trauma is— nostalgic?"

"Nostalgic," Oliver echoes, considering the word. "Nostalgias of another life. Complexities of memory a thousand miles away."

"More Ginsberg?" Ptonomy asks.

"The poems are a type of semantic knowledge," Cary says. "But they were also a strong part of his experiential memories. Perhaps— Once he realized he was trapped on the astral plane, he used them as a memory aid. But eventually— They were all he had left." It's a sobering thought. "Oliver must have realized he was slipping away, losing coherence. The poetry, the dancing— He was trying to cure his detachment syndrome. It just wasn't enough, not without his body."

He looks to Ptonomy, concerned for him and Lenny and Amy— And Melanie, wherever she may be. This whole situation is— Increasingly precarious.

"Do you remember that, Oliver?" Cary asks. "Do you remember what happened in the ice cube?"

"I was there for quite a long time," Oliver says. "Every day was the same. I could imaginify myself a kingdom but nothing was ever real. Until David. David was real. I couldn't imaginify him away, him or his monster. So I decided to help."

"That's why you came back," Cary says, recalling Oliver's sudden return. Over twenty years of nothing and then there he was. At first, Cary thought that Oliver had finally remembered them and found his way back, but he didn't know any of them. He came back for David. To him, they were just strangers, not his wife and closest friends. They're still basically strangers to Oliver now.

But Oliver does remember Melanie. He remembers her enough to risk his life to search for her.

"Oliver," Cary says, needing to know for himself as much as for understanding of Oliver's condition. "What do you remember about this past year? After you helped us get the monster out of David. Farouk took you over. We tried to find you but every time we got close, we lost you again. Were you aware of your surroundings? Did he keep you somewhere, or— Was he controlling you?"

Oliver consider the question. It obviously takes effort for him to remember.

"I was many places," Oliver decides. "It's hard to say— Which places were real. Sometimes Lenny was there. Sometimes Farouk or Melanie. Sometimes I was— Nowhere. I did what he wanted me to do."

"When did you see Melanie?" Cary asks. "When you came to Division 3 to steal the genetic sculpting gun?"

"Hm, yes, but— Before that. He said it was his gift, the monster. Bringing her from her bad dreams to be with me."

"My god," Cary says, realizing. "Melanie— She was distant, forgetful. She stopped caring about her work, about anything. We thought it was depression, drugs, but— She had detachment syndrome. She already had it."

"How’s that possible?" Ptonomy asks. "She was in her body."

"Farouk got to her through her dreams," Cary says. "Just like he did with David. He took her out of her body — through the astral plane — and into his. She had no mental defenses and she wasn't even aware it was happening because— She was asleep. If she was aware at all, she would have thought she was just— Having a bad dream. He could have worked on her that way for weeks before she became too affected to hide her symptoms."

"Wait," Ptonomy says. "She wasn't just disembodied. She was inside of Farouk."

Cary slaps his forehead. "Of course! Kerry, you said— What did Melanie say when you talked to her?"

"She said— Reality was a choice and the world wasn't real," Kerry recalls. "It was all in her head so she didn't need to save anything. And she said that one of us isn't real, that— One of us is just a fantasy."

"That sounds like Farouk to me," Ptonomy says. "Just like Lenny, she had Farouk's thoughts in her head and she couldn't differentiate them from her own. And like Lenny, Melanie tried to dull those painful thoughts with drugs."

"So all the weird stuff Melanie said, that wasn't her?" Kerry asks.

"It was her, but— Under the influence of Farouk's world view, his ideas." Cary turns to Oliver. "Oliver, do you remember anything else? Things you did and said under his control? Things Melanie did or said?"

Oliver tries. "I'm not sure what happened and— What he imaginified happening."

"Let's go backwards," Ptonomy offers. "Do you remember David torturing you?"

"Yes," Oliver agrees. "That was unpleasant. But he thought I was the monster. His anger was— Quite natural. If anything, the drill was— Too restrained."

Cary suppresses a shudder. "Well. There's no more torturing for anyone."

"What happened before that?" Ptonomy asks.

"He set the trap," Oliver says. "He brought Melanie to the desert. She wanted to be with me in the ice cube."

"That was definitely not Melanie's idea," Cary declares. Then he lowers his voice so David doesn't overhear. "Is that what Farouk wants? To live alone with David in an empty world?"

Ptonomy nods and lowers his voice, too. "It matches. Oliver could create the kingdom of his dreams. Farouk wants to be god using David's powers." 

"Farouk should put himself in an ice cube," Cary grumbles.

"Yes?" Oliver asks, suddenly, turning to an empty space. He listens. Then he turns to Ptonomy. "David says he needs help."

Everyone looks at David. He's with Syd and everything seems calm, but— Cary may not be privy to David's thoughts, but he knows that surface calm can be quite deceptive.

"Which David? What's wrong?" Ptonomy asks.

Oliver listens. "Apparently Syd is being a— That's very rude."

"Ah, it's Dvd." Ptonomy goes quiet. "Got it. Lenny's going over now. She'll take care of it."

"I must admit," Cary says. "At times I'm quite jealous of your mainframe link. And Oliver's telepathy. I'd quite like to be able to speak with Dvd and Divad directly."

"They'll be sharing their body today," Ptonomy says. "But— We were considering using telepathic antennae to share the relay with you, Kerry, and Syd." 

Suddenly, Syd stands up and walks out of the lab, her body language tense, angry. David looks after her, distraught. Lenny stays and comforts him.

Ptonomy sighs. "Syd's— Not in a good place right now. And if you and Kerry had the relay, Syd would feel even more excluded than she already does."

"That is a shame," Cary says. "If Divad and Dvd wish to, as Oliver said, pool their resources, being able to hear them would make things much easier."

"It would be good for them, too," Ptonomy agrees. "Oliver, is Dvd still here?"

"Yes," Oliver says. 

"Dvd, how do you feel about allowing Cary and Kerry to hear the relay? So you can work together with Cary to help David and Oliver?"

Oliver listens. "David said you just said they wouldn't have the relay."

Ptonomy smiles. "Only sometimes. We're still going to keep it up as much as possible, especially when David isn't in your system's body."

Oliver listens some more. "David is having a disagreement."

"Divad and Dvd?" Cary asks. "Oliver, why don't you call them by their names? You never treated me and Kerry like we were the same person. It's really quite rude."

"When we set up the relay, Oliver said— Divad and Dvd's voices and thoughts are just— the thoughts David believes he's having as them," Ptonomy says. "And honestly Lenny's right. When they stop being angry, they do all sound like David. Because they are David."

"Still," Cary says, perturbed. 

"Oliver, can you try to refer to Dvd and Divad by their preferred names?" Ptonomy asks. 

"They're all David," Oliver insists. "But yes, I do see your point." He listens to something. "David— That is, Divad wants to share the relay so he can speak to Cary. He said he doesn't mind Kerry hearing. But he doesn't want Syd to hear David's thoughts. Dvd— He said he wants Syd to hear him so he can shout at her. He claims not to care about Cary and Kerry, but— Ah, I'm speaking out of turn. My apologies. Balancing these things is— Challenging. I do my best not to listen, but hearing is inevitable." 

"You must hear a lot of secrets," Ptonomy says. 

"I hear a lot of everything," Oliver replies. "Except from you and Lenny and Amy. Your silence is— Unnatural. Quite unpleasant, frankly."

"I always found the Vermillion soothing," Ptonomy says. "No memories, just data. You don't find all that noise overwhelming? David does."

"David doesn't remember growing up as a mind reader," Cary points out. "It must be different, having that from birth. Our minds adapt to our environment. That kind of constant noise— The mind filters it out or learns manageable ways to interpret it. Like— White noise or synesthesia. Oliver, you used to say thoughts were— Musical?"

"Yes," Oliver agrees. "The music of the spheres. A million melodies, one after another."

"There've been very few identified, powerful mind readers like Oliver and David," Ptonomy says. "The mainframe contains evidence that others exist, but it seems they use their powers to hide themselves. Now that the war's over, maybe they'll feel safe enough to come forward."

"It was a long war," Cary cautions. "And our presence in Division 3 is hardly public knowledge. The worldwide attacks on mutants have stopped but few know why, and the public at large remains ignorant about mutants entirely. The Divisions still suppress knowledge of our existence."

"It's a lot like David's invisible war," Ptonomy muses. "Two sides fighting and forcing the world to forget the fight."

"The cure for the world is the same as the cure for David," Cary says, firmly. "Knowledge and compassion." He waves his hand. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. What should we do about the relay?"

"I've been holding off on this for Syd's sake, but— I think you're right, we need to make the decision now." Ptonomy turns and waves Lenny and David over. "David, Cary and Kerry would like to be able to hear Divad and Dvd through the relay. That means they'll be able to hear your thoughts too. Divad wants to be able to talk to Cary so they can pool their resources."

David takes that in, then listens as his brothers talk to him. "I guess. I trust them, and— I don't want you to feel—" He listens some more, then frowns. "You don't yell at Amy. Wait, you've been yelling at Amy with your thoughts?! Dvd!" He gives an exasperated sigh. "I guess— Since we're going to be sharing our body—" He looks at Ptonomy. "Okay. Cary and Kerry can have the relay."

"Oliver, go ahead," Ptonomy says.

"This won't hurt a bit," Oliver says, and he taps Cary on the forehead. Nothing happens. He does the same to Kerry. She looks at Cary and shrugs.

"The relay is off," Ptonomy reminds them. "Unless we're done with the memory tests?"

"I would like to do some more," Cary says. "How about we do a quick relay test?"

"It's pretty noisy," Ptonomy cautions. "Obviously we want Dvd and Divad to be able to talk to everyone, but if it's too much Oliver can only relay to you as needed. Kerry, the same goes for you. This isn't all or nothing. You do get used to it after a while."

"Relay going on— Now," Oliver says.

"-ary? Cary, can you hear me? This is Divad. Cary?"

"Oh, Divad, hello!" Cary says. It sounds like Divad's voice is coming from next to Ptonomy. "Are you over there?"

"When they speak, you'll hear them directionally," Ptonomy explains. "Thoughts will be heard internally.

'Like this,' Divad says. Or— Thinks.

'Yeah, get used to it,' Dvd thinks. 'I've got my eye on all of you.'

"I'm sorry if Dvd thinks anything rude," David says, pre-emptively. "Or if I— My thoughts can be—" 'Maybe this was a bad idea. Torturing two more people with my thoughts— No, Oliver said he'd turn it off if they wanted. I wish he could turn them off for Divad and Dvd. I wish he could turn them off for me.' "Sorry," David says, resigned.

"It's like Cary," Kerry realizes. "When Cary goes inside me, I hear him in my head." She smiles, delighted. "David, it's like you're part of our system!"

"It is?" David asks.

"It is," Cary confirms. "To be honest, I have missed hearing Kerry that way. Of course I'm very happy to have her outside, but— It has been awfully quiet without her. Three is much noisier than one, but— I think we'll be fine."

"I'm really glad to hear that," Ptonomy says. "Feel free to talk to each other as much as you want. But the Davids have to share their thoughts as part of the relay. They're trusting you with a lot. Let them decide what they're ready to share aloud. Try your best to prioritize what's coming from outside over what you hear inside."

"Okay," Kerry says, determined. "Cary, it's like they're outside and inside at the same time. It's like— We're one big system!" She gives David a hug, and David accepts it, surprised and then touched. "First we both like cherry pie, and now we're a system!"

"I guess we are," David says. ' _Kerry_ ,' he thinks, quiet and heartfelt.

'He was ours first,' Dvd warns. 'Just because we have to share him doesn't mean we have to like it.'

"Dvd," Kerry chides. "Don't abuse the relay. You have to say things out loud so everyone can hear them. Right, Cary?"

"Ah, that's right," Cary agrees. That's almost exactly what Cary used to tell Kerry back when he was coaxing her into talking. "If you're going to say things to us, it's only fair if your brothers can hear them, too."

"Fine," Dvd grumbles. "Whatever, I don't want to talk to you anyway. Just remember I'm keeping a close eye on all of you."

"Sorry about him," Divad sighs. "Any progress with Oliver? I was watching David."

"I'll show you my notes after we finish the tests," Cary promises. "We can do the analysis together?"

"Yeah," Divad says, sounding pleased and eager. "Thanks for this, Oliver. It's really— It's been a long time." 'I can't wait to be in our body. This is— I missed it so much.'

'Suck-up,' Dvd grumbles. 'Teacher's pet.' "Don't get distracted. We have to keep David safe."

"I'm helping them so they can help us," Divad replies. "If you help too you might actually learn something."

"Learning's your thing," Dvd insists.

"Are they always like this?" Kerry asks. 

"Pretty much," David admits. "They'll calm down. Dvd only really does yelling or— Aggrieved silence. When Dvd stops yelling so does Divad. Though apparently they do a lot of thinking I can't hear." David glares at the empty spot where it sounds like Dvd is standing.

"David, this means everyone can hear you and your brothers except Syd," Ptonomy says. "I was hoping to share the relay with her as well. At this point— I'm afraid she isn't ready for that, and Divad and Dvd and Oliver's needs outweigh that consideration. I hope that will change, but if and when it does, you'll have the right to refuse to share with her."

'Syd doesn't—' David starts, then starts again aloud. "Syd can't forgive me for hurting her, so— I don't think you have to worry about that." 'She shouldn't anyway. God, I really don't want to think about this anymore.' He looks to Lenny, silently pleading for help. 

"I got this," Lenny tells him. "You guys finish up with Oliver. I'm gonna take the Davids for a stroll." She gives David a push towards the door.

"Bring Divad back soon so he can help me with my analysis," Cary calls after her.

"Relay going off— Now," Oliver says.

“That was— Wow,” Kerry says, still taking it in. She turns to Cary. “Do you really miss me?”

“Oh Kerry, of course I do,” Cary says, heartfelt. “But I’m so proud of you. Seeing you thrive like this— It means more to me than anything.”

Kerry’s absolutely thrilled by that. “You know, you can be inside me, if you want. We’re a system, you should be inside me sometimes, right? That’s how our system works. We share just like the Davids share. We should share more, too. I want to.”

“We should,” Cary says, warmly. “Not right now, of course. We have a great deal to do today. But— Later, certainly.”

Kerry’s disappointed, but she rallies quickly. “Maybe we can share at night, like the Davids will. Then we’ll only need one cot. And I can eat breakfast for us.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” Cary says, lightly. 

“Yeah, you do love eating,” Kerry says. “I wouldn’t want you to stop doing something you love.”

Cary gives her a hug for that. “Let’s finish up with Oliver. Then we can have the relay back on and we’ll be able to hear the Davids again.”

“Yeah,” Kerry sighs, like the thought of it makes her feel— Complete. 

Cary is very glad that no one can hear his thoughts. Then he remembers Oliver. He meets Oliver’s eyes. 

‘Please don’t tell her,’ he thinks. 

‘As you wish,’ Oliver thinks back. The presence of him in Cary’s head is as painfully familiar as the presence of the Davids. In a way, Oliver was part of his system too, back then. Another mind inside his own. And now Cary is an inside mind, and he’s meant to be inside of Kerry.

But he doesn’t want to be inside.


	64. Day 10: Stop trusting your enemies more than your friends.

Through the communication system embedded in his body, Clark sees David and Lenny approaching his office. Clark might have been caught off-guard by Cary's visit yesterday, but Division 3 is always watching David, which means so is he. He puts aside his work and waits for them to enter.

Lenny knocks first, but it's only for David's sake. Lenny does, after all, have zero respect for authority. From the mainframe, she can see everything he can see and more, including his office. Clark doesn't care for that, but he supposes that keeping his body is worth the trade-off of not having the entire surveillance system in his mind.

"Hey boss," Lenny says, as she strides in like she owns the place. 

David follows after her, visibly wary. Clark would enjoy the novelty of David being afraid of him a lot more if he hadn't spent the past week and a half trying not to drown in David's bottomless ocean of trauma. He’s frequently kicked himself for not carrying out his order to kill David the first chance he had. He wouldn’t have ended up with half his face burned off and Farouk would be dead, three birds with one stone. This is what happens when Clark lets his heart get the better of his head. 

On the other hand: fuck the shit beetle.

He really hopes he doesn't end up tortured by an unstable god for the rest of his life. The Admiral better know what he's doing.

"Lenny, David," Clark greets, neutrally. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

They sit down, Lenny making herself very comfortable by putting her feet up on his desk. "David and I were talking just now, and you know what he told me? He said he didn't know if Division 3 was paying him for his job."

"I wouldn’t call David an active employee," Clark replies.

"But you would call him an employee," Lenny says. "Now, I was gonna take care of this myself, be the hero bringing the Davids a big fat check. But I thought, why should I take that away from them? So we're gonna do this together. Right, Davids?"

"Um, yes?" David says, clearly entirely at a loss.

"If this is about David's paycheck—" Clark begins.

"Yeah, let’s see that paycheck," Lenny asks. "You know, the one the Davids earned for the two weeks they spent risking their lives to stop an evil god that no one else can stop?"

"An evil god he spent most of those two weeks conspiring with," Clark points out. "So no, there is no paycheck waiting for him. He's a patient and a prisoner."

David visibly wilts, but Clark tells himself to hold strong. This is a matter of principal. David betrayed Division 3, lied to his face countless times. Clark's put aside a lot for his job, but he has his limits.

"Nice story," Lenny says, undeterred. "But no. Let's start from the beginning. David, did you agree to become an employee of Division 3?"

"Um, we talked about it," David says. "Clark and I agreed to work together to stop Farouk."

"A verbal agreement," Clark admits. "Not binding. David disappeared before he could sign on."

"You know, this mainframe thing is really great," Lenny says. "I was never really into, like, learning shit before, but it's all right here. All I have to do is think a question and bam, there's the answer. I just thought, is a verbal agreement a binding contract? And you know what? Turns out it is."

Clark definitely hates the fact that Lenny is in the mainframe. "Fine. But David broke that contract when he failed to perform his duties and acted in bad faith."

Lenny takes her feet down and leans forward. "You hired them to find Farouk and his body and deliver both of them to Division 3, dead or alive. I'm sorry, how did they fail to perform that? They're not the ones who couldn't hold a prisoner for twenty-four hours."

"David abused our resources and allowed Farouk to enter our facility, kill my men, and steal a dangerous weapon."

"Lenny, maybe this was a bad idea," David says, in a low voice, as if Clark can't hear him.

"Watch and learn, kiddo," Lenny tells him. "Okay, and why did the Davids do all that? Because one of your employees gave them orders. D3’s military, right? The Davids had to follow orders. If they're shitty orders, that's not their fault."

"Future Syd isn't our employee," Clark says, unimpressed.

"Syd is," Lenny says. "So’s Cary."

"Division 3 isn't responsible for the actions of its employees in the future," Clark insists.

"Just like David isn't responsible for the actions of his future self?" Lenny says, and smirks. "Yeah, suck on that. What's good for the goose. You're gonna pay them what they're owed."

"Fine," Clark says, hiding his annoyance with a tight smile. "Two week's pay."

"And a year’s backpay," Lenny insists. "And let's talk about that salary."

Clark sighs and leans back. "Go on."

"I asked the mainframe, and wow, you're not paying any of my people what they're worth, so that's gonna change. And the Davids, they're worth a lot. You had a year and an international military force trying to stop Farouk and you couldn't even scratch him. Me and the Davids kicked his ass. How much did that operation cost before the Davids solved it? Oh wait, I'll ask the mainframe."

"All right," Clark says, surrendering. "You made your point."

"I'm not done yet," Lenny says, eagerly. "You're gonna draw up a new contract for the Davids and they're gonna be active employees. All three of them."

"David is a patient and a prisoner," Clark says again, because apparently that's not sinking in.

"They're our patients," Lenny allows. "And yeah, they're not allowed to leave, but that's so we can keep them safe. They haven't lost their rights as human beings and they sure as hell haven't lost their job. Division 3 is paying for their treatment because they got hurt doing that job. And then there’s the reparations."

"Reparations?" Clark asks, disbelieving.

"I'm sorry, was there another organization called Division 3 hunting mutant children and ripping families apart?"

Clark's ready to put an end to this performance. "You could have taken care of all of this with the Admiral."

"You'd think that," Lenny says, and her smile barely hides her anger now. "But you know what else I found out when I was kickin' around the mainframe? The Admiral might be the one giving the orders, but as far as the Divisions are concerned, he's property. That was the deal you gave that Walter guy, too. Do what we say and we won't kill you for being a mutant. That's not a job, that's slavery. You guys were pure evil before David and Melanie slapped some sense into you. I'm not gonna let you turn the Davids into your slaves. You're gonna treat them like they're human beings and you're gonna make this right."

David isn't a human being. 

That's what Clark wants to say. That's what he said to Cary, that David wasn't a human being because he was a mutant. Mutants are threats to the security and safety of the world, threats pure and simple. It was Clark's job to hunt them down and evaluate them and then— Deal with them, one way or another, by whatever means necessary.

He wasn't part of Division 3 when they were hunting mutant children. But he's dealt with plenty of mutants one way or another. And he was fine with that. He slept well every night knowing he made the world safer. And now he alternates between nightmares about being burned alive, and nightmares where he's the one sitting in the pool.

Clark doesn't think of things in terms of good and evil. What matters is power and predictability. The world is a dangerous place and mutants only make it more dangerous, more unpredictable. It was about containment, at the start, then disarmament, then extermination. All very logical steps. But mutants keep being born, and more of them, all over the world. It's random and Clark doesn't like random. He doesn't like any of this.

Clark wants to make the world safe for his son. But he can't think about his son anymore without thinking of David. He wouldn't want his son to grow up in David's world, the world the Divisions made for mutants. That's why he's supporting Cary's plan for Division 4. 

The Divisions agreed to work with the Summerlanders because they needed David to stop Farouk. They still need him for that. But what they need even more is a stable god that's on their side. They're going to need a god as powerful as David to help them control a world full of unpredictable gods. If mutations can't be cured, prevented, or eliminated— Then they need to be managed. So as much as Clark hates this, he's going to do his job. That's still his job, evaluating mutants, dealing with them one way or another and by whatever means necessary. It's just that he's learning to use the carrot instead of the stick.

"You're right," Clark says, calmly. "David, on behalf of Division 3, I'd like to apologize for our— Bureaucratic oversight."

Lenny snorts but doesn't interrupt.

"In terms of your employment and backpay, I'll have the paperwork brought to you. Do you have a bank account?"

"Um," David says, eyes wide. "I had a joint account with Amy, before— I don't—"

"We'll have that taken care of," Clark says, smoothly. "As for the reparations, that's above my pay grade. I'll see what I can do. But I'm confident the Divisions will want to make things right."

David looks between Lenny and Clark, then at the empty air. He looks absolutely stunned. "Wow. Um. Thank you?"

Clark smiles for him, tight-lipped but as earnest as he can muster. "Thank Lenny. She's right, you should be compensated for your service and for any mistreatment that you suffered because of Division 3's past actions."

Clark may have laid that on too thick because David is giving him a suspicious look in response. But David can't read Clark's mind, at least for now, so the suspicion fades. David looks at Lenny with outright awe. Lenny preens, soaking it up. Looks like she still got to be the hero. 

"Now if you'll excuse me," Clark says, politely. "I believe we all have work to do."

A minute after they're gone, there's a polite knock on the door. It's Amy.

"Sorry to interrupt," she says, despite having obviously waited until Lenny and David left. "We need your help with something."

"That's what I'm here for," Clark says. He's never had a problem with his salary, but he's thinking about asking for a raise himself, assuming they survive this. Or at least an enormous bonus.

"It's Syd," Amy sighs. "I've been keeping an eye on her. She's— She needs someone to talk to, and— We've all tried, but she won't open up to any of us."

"But she's talked to me," Clark says. "I'll see what I can do. Where is she?"

"She left the building," Amy says. "But we know where she went. Here's the address."

Clark takes the handwritten address. Amy can be charmingly analogue for a woman trapped in a computer with an android interface.

"Oh, I need something from you," Clark says. "David's checking account. He said he had one with you?"

"Yes," Amy says, and she doesn't need to ask why. "I'll get you the account number. I should have closed it years ago, but— It would have felt too much like giving up. I know you and David haven't always gotten along, but— You're a good person, Clark. Thank you."

"Just doing my job," Clark says.

§

Clark isn't surprised to find Syd in a bar. He's surprised that she managed to find one that's open at this hour of the morning and isn’t a total dive. But Syd is nothing if not determined in her self-destruction. Clark would be happy to leave her to it if not for the fact that right now she's a bigger threat to world security than David, because she's a threat to David.

Clark helped Ptonomy and Syd defuse the Amy bomb. Now Syd's the one who needs defusing. Syd’s tucked into the darkest corner she could find. Clark brings an empty glass from the bar, sits down with her, and pours himself a shot from her whiskey bottle. He raises his glass in a silent toast and then takes a sniff.

“I see you got the good stuff,” Clark says. He puts the glass back down without drinking. 

“World’s gonna end,” Syd says, voice flat. “No point in saving for a rainy day. This is the rainy day.”

Clark looks at the window front. It’s bright and sunny outside. But he knows she didn’t mean it literally. “Or you could, I don’t know, maybe not help end the world?”

Syd doesn't respond to that. Clark sees why he was called in for this. She's locked down tight. Even Ptonomy isn't enough of a bastard to pry her open. 

"You won't forgive him," Clark says, plainly. There's no point in hiding how much he knows. "If you're giving up, here are the options. We can put you in witness protection, try to disappear you, but that didn't work out so well for Amy and her husband. We can freeze you until it's safe, like we did Melanie, but again, Farouk could unfreeze you."

"And the third option?" Syd asks.

"Farouk would steal your soul as you died and use you like he used Lenny."

"So I don't have any options."

"Not those," Clark says. "As I told you before, your boyfriend is an extremely powerful mutant who could destroy the world if you hurt his feelings real bad."

"I didn't know what he was," Syd says, staring into her whiskey. "I didn't know what was in him."

"To be fair, neither did he," Clark says. "I'll give David credit. When he realized the truth, he tried to do the right thing. But that's not an option for him either. He's trying to defuse himself before Farouk figures out how to blow him up. If he can learn to live with himself, with his past, use his powers responsibly— Stability improves the odds."

"But love is still a weapon," Syd counters. 

"Yes. And so is shame."

"I don't—" Syd starts, then stops. "I don't want to punish him."

"Apparently you do," Clark counters.

"Because I'm afraid of him?" Syd asks, finally meeting his eyes. "Because he's—" She doesn't finish.

Clark considers her. "David's an extreme outlier. But to be stable he needs to belong and your people are giving him that. Eventually he'll be stable enough to accept that he's— What was it you said? One of a kind. That's what gets me about you mutants. You're all one of a kind. That's made it very hard to kill you."

Syd straightens up. 

"Honesty is important," Clark tells her. "So here's me being honest with you. The Divisions didn't play nice with you and Melanie because we had a change of heart about mutants. We played nice because we realized the future we've been trying to stop is already here. We could stick to the same tactics, double down on genocide. But it only takes one David to make every human weapon irrelevant. We're trying to avoid the end of the human race and Farouk isn't always the cause. In some timelines, we found David as a baby and we're the ones who made him into a bomb. Or at least that's what the Admiral says. He could be lying. He's been on our side for a long time, but he's a mutant. He knows all our secrets. Now there are other mutants in his head, learning the same secrets. What's that saying? One person can keep a secret but not two? How about four? What happens when those secrets lose the protection of the mainframe?"

Syd stares at him. "Are you going to—"

"No," Clark says. "We'll help them. But helping them has consequences. Helping David has consequences. Killing all of you would also have consequences. The odds say to let David and his friends live and help them. But we're trying to defuse the David bomb and there you are, hurting his feelings real bad."

"So I don't have a choice?" Syd says, stunned but still stubbornly defiant.

"You have a lot of choices," Clark says. "Make one you can live with."

Syd slumps, accepting defeat.

Clark judges the Syd bomb defused, at least for now. He knocks back his shot, savors the burn, then takes the bottle. It is the good stuff.

"Hey," Syd protests, reaching for it.

"You've had enough," Clark says. "Consider this a gift to me for helping you save the world. Walk it off, see a movie, play with puppies in the park. Then go back to that lab and do the work."

"I can't talk to him without hurting him."

"Then talk to the other Davids," Clark says. "Talk to your friends. You're your own worst enemy, Syd. Stop trusting your enemies more than your friends."

Syd glares at him, annoyed, but— She accepts the idea. Clark doesn't know if she’ll let it grow, but at least she has it.


	65. Day 10: He wants to be happy.

Matilda is very relaxing to touch. 

She’s also more popular than ever. Ptonomy was taking a turn with her, petting her soft fur for sensory stimulation to treat his disembodiment, and now he’s handed her off to David to help him stay calm during their session. David focuses on Matilda’s rumbling purr and looks at Divad working with Cary, at Kerry and Amy helping Oliver with his embodiment exercises. Dvd is hanging back, watching everything with his usual suspicion, and Lenny is next to David on the sofa in case he needs a save. 

Syd still hasn’t come back. But David’s trying not to think about Syd. 

“I know you’re nervous about discussing your possession trauma,” Ptonomy says, in his calming therapist tone. “How about you start by telling me about your morning? It’s been busy for you.”

“You know me and my rough mornings,” David says, but that reminds him of Syd. “You know everything that happened.”

“I do,” Ptonomy says. “But the relay was off. It’s back now and you need to practice saying how you feel. So let’s practice. What’s on your mind?”

Syd, obviously, but— He really doesn’t want to talk about Syd. Which all experience tells him means he has to. Despite what Lenny said, therapy really is still torture.

"I talked to Syd," David starts, and forces himself on. "She told me that— She can't forgive me. And she told me— I've forgiven myself. For what I did."

"Was she right?"

"Yes," David grits out. "I honestly didn't— But she said, Syd said, forgiving ourselves is— Accepting our mistakes, learning from them, and moving on. And I'd done the first two but I wasn't letting myself move on because— I'm David's Haller's shame."

"You're not just your shame," Ptonomy reminds him.

"I know," David says. "But— Sometimes it's just so hard to feel anything else. And forgiving myself— It didn't— Syd said I should feel better but—"

"You feel what you feel," Ptonomy says. "Everybody's different. What do you feel when you think about forgiving yourself?"

"Awful," David admits. "Like I'm doing something wrong." He suddenly realizes he'd had a shame attack right in the middle of the conversation with Syd, but he hadn't been able to recognize it. "I had a shame attack." He looks to Lenny. "That's why you came over?"

"Dvd told us you were upset," Ptonomy says. "It's okay that you didn't recognize what was happening. It'll take practice to be able to experience those without being caught up in them. Do you remember what set it off?"

David thinks back. He was nervous just talking to Syd, but— He was holding it together until— "She asked if we could— She wanted to be therapy buddies but—" He feels angry again just thinking about it. "I know, I asked her, but— I thought—" He pets Matilda, breathes. "She said I was— Lying to myself, putting her in charge of my feelings, like— Like my feeling bad about hurting her hurts her. But if she hasn't forgiven me— Of course I feel bad about that! So I don't know what she wants."

"Maybe she doesn't either," Ptonomy suggests. "Maybe Syd's just as upset and hurt and confused as you."

"How am I supposed to know?" David asks, genuinely. "I can't hear what she's thinking anymore."

"You didn't know you heard her actual thoughts in Clockworks," Ptonomy counters.

"I didn't know," David agrees. "I heard— A lot of things that weren't real. But I heard the real things, too. I couldn't trust what I heard, but— I couldn't ignore it either. I heard all the awful things everyone thought about me. I heard how hopeless everyone thought I was. I heard how broken and disgusting and— I heard it, okay? And I heard—"

"What?" Ptonomy prompts, gently. "What did you hear?"

"When I got back, after the orb— I heard what everyone thought of me. Even Syd— She thought so many terrible things and— I know it's— God, I know how impossible it is to not think, but— If she'd just— Told me, maybe— I don't know. Maybe Farouk didn't need to do all of that just to hurt me because hearing everyone all the time was already torture."

Ptonomy gives him a considering look. "David— Are you saying you don't want your outside powers back?"

"No," David says, and then, "I don't know. After Farouk was gone— Sometimes there were these moments when I thought, this is quiet, this is— Real, actual quiet. But it wasn't." He points to the crown. "This is quiet. And— If I wasn't— None of this would have happened, right? Farouk wouldn't have— Melanie and Division 3 and— No one would care about David Haller. I wouldn't even be David Haller. Maybe I'd even be— Happy, normal, married in the suburbs with like, two point three kids."

"Maybe," Ptonomy allows. "But that's not what happened."

David sighs.

"What brought all this up?" Ptonomy asks. 

David shrugs. "This whole thing, this— All the therapy and— I know it's to stop myself from being turned into— Something even worse than I already am. But— If it works, somehow, if— If one day Farouk is gone—" Say it aloud, say it aloud. "I tried, you know? I tried real life and— Syd wanted me to leave Clockworks with her. She wanted that but— I didn't. I wanted— Quiet. To live somewhere quiet, like I remember in my fake memories of having a life that actually contained quiet. But it's fake. This is the only real quiet I've ever known and— I actually— I thought, what if Cary can make a crown that doesn't hurt? What if he can do that? Maybe that's what I need, to just— Let myself be turned off. But I know it wouldn't matter because— Even if he could, I'm still— Quiet is a delusion that Farouk put in my head."

David slumps, entirely overwhelmed. He pulls Matilda close but that makes her squirm. She wriggles free and shakes herself, annoyed. David grabs a throw pillow and holds that instead.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, considering. "You're afraid. Not just of what might happen if this doesn't work, but of what might happen if it does. You're starting to hope, but hope— That comes with a lot of baggage. Even aside from Farouk, David— You had a very hard life. The life you remember. You were sick and the world can be very cruel when we're sick. And the worse you got, the worse you were treated, even by people you thought you could trust. This is a safe place for you and you don't want to leave it, just like you didn't want to leave Clockworks."

Yes, David thinks.

"David, we know that— Even if this works out, there are things that would make it very difficult for you to live on your own. We've known that from the start, from the moment we brought you to Summerland. We failed you before but we're making up for it now. You're not going to live your life as nothing but a patient, but you do need a supportive environment. And so do we. So we're going to make one and bring you there with us."

David looks at Ptonomy, and the hope he feels—

"Getting better doesn't mean being left on your own. Getting better means staying with us and being healthy enough to give back. And I know those are things you want to do."

David nods. He does want those things. He wants to stay and he wants to be able to give back. They're not in his mantra or his foundation but those ideas feel just as essential.

"How about you write them down anyway?" Ptonomy suggests. "If your foundation is your identity and your mantra is what helps you through the tough times— How about something that helps you build your future?"

David reflexively rejects that, even though he wants it. "That's a bad idea. I can't— Hope for things."

"You couldn't before," Ptonomy agrees. "But this time is different, remember? We're making it different. Farouk isn't inside you anymore and he's not getting back in, he's not going to use you."

"You can't promise that," David tells him. "Every time you say it—" David tries very hard not to think about the fact that he's still Farouk's obsession, that he always will be, that no matter how hard he fights he always loses. That Farouk is in this building and watching him right now. When he thinks about all that— 

"I know," Lenny says. "It's fucking terrifying and believe me, if anyone gets that, it's me. But the only way out is through. We're getting through this together. We got through Clockworks, we can get through this. One step at a time, okay?"

David meets Lenny's eyes, and— Maybe they're not really her eyes, but he sees her in them and he knows she wouldn't lie to him about this, he knows she wouldn't. Lenny wouldn't have gone to bat for him against Division 3 and said all that stuff about contracts and backpay if she didn't think there was hope for him. He's always trusted Lenny so much, or— That's what he remembers. But that's what she remembers, too. 

The terror recedes. It's never gone but at least it goes down to something manageable. 

"There ya go," Lenny says, proudly. "Now come on, open that notebook. I just got you a barrel full of cabbage, there's gotta be something you want to spend it on."

"I don't know," David says. "I've never— Money's never really been—" Doctors, medication— They were expensive. So was school, especially after he lost his scholarship. If he hadn't been expelled, if he'd— And then the drugs— His whole sense of— Expectations or hope were just— He put a cord around his neck and stepped off a chair, wanting wasn't something he did, except wanting to make everything stop. Clockworks didn't make that any better, and since then— He's just been trying to figure out which way is up.

"Yeah," Lenny agrees. "But we got you right-side up. You got a few bucks coming. If you wanna buy, like, a boring farm in the middle of nowhere, you could do that. Or you could actually buy something fun. I dunno, start small, buy a fucking chocolate bar. Buy a new shirt, your clothes are older than Kerry. Work your way up to a tropical vacation and a red convertible. It's early for your mid-life crisis but fuck that, you earned it."

David huffs a laugh. "Yeah, okay, maybe—" He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "I'll write down what Ptonomy said. And the chocolate bar." Wanting a chocolate bar should be fairly harmless. And maybe— He did see some nice outfits in the fashion magazines.

"And the tropical vacation," Lenny insists.

David shakes his head but grabs the notebook and opens it to a new page. What should he even call this? It feels absurdly arrogant to— Declare what he wants. It's beyond tempting fate, it's painting himself red and dancing in front of an angry bull. 

But— Farouk already knows what he wants. He lived in his head and knows David better than he knows himself. So— it doesn't really make a difference to Farouk.

That's— 

Wow. Okay. That's— That's what all of this is. Farouk already knows every thought that's ever flitted through David's mind. He knows what's flitting through it now. And that's horrible, that's really— But— It means saying it, writing it down— That doesn't tell Farouk anything. It only tells David. And David— Wants to know what he wants. It's like— a wish list for Chanukah. He and Amy waited for the last night to open all their presents at once in a frenzy of torn wrapping paper. Or at least that's what he remembers.

He writes 'Wish List' and underlines it. Then beneath that, he writes 'Stay with my friends' and 'Give back to the world'. Then he adds 'Lenny's chocolate bar' and 'New clothes' and then, in a fit of abandon, 'A tropical vacation.'

Looking at the list makes him feel— Amazing and awful all at once. He shouldn't want things, he absolutely shouldn't. He feels that deeply. But— He really wants to want things. He wants to— Share a chocolate bar with Lenny. Go clothes shopping with Kerry. Take everyone on a tropical vacation and just— Be happy. He wants to be happy.

'Be happy,' he writes, and that's— Truly an absurd thing to ask for, he knows that. But he wrote it down anyway and he's not going to take it back.

"I'm going to be tortured for the rest of my life," he says, staring at the list. "I'm going to end the world. I'm going to stay with my friends and give back to the world." They all feel— Not equally possible, but at least they all feel possible. And terrifying. They all definitely feel terrifying.

"Hey, I demand to be less terrifying than the shit beetle," Lenny says, then considers that. "Actually— I demand to be more terrifying than the shit beetle."

"Lenny the Terrible," David jokes. "Like, with one of those big Russian beards?"

"And a furry hat," Lenny says. "Gotta have the furry hat. You know that's gonna get me laid. All the girls wanna pet my fur."

David laughs at that, actually laughs. 

"See, you're happy already," Lenny says, elbowing him. "You've got some of that stuff now. Still gotta work on that tropical vacation, but—"

David looks at the list again. He looks around the room. She's right. "You're a really good cruise director, Lenny."

"You bet I am," Lenny declares.

"She is," Ptonomy agrees. "And David, that was really good work with that list. You've come a long way to be able to do that. So let's keep going."

"Right," David says, then looks to Ptonomy expectantly.

"Your outside powers," Ptonomy reminds him. "The best person to help with that is Oliver. I know he's not in great shape himself right now, but we're working on it and Cary's confident he'll improve. Helping you will help him, and the more he remembers, the more he'll be able to remember. So spend some time with him, see if you can jog his memory. You will get the crown off, and when that happens, I don't want that to set you back."

"Okay," David accepts. 

"And as for you and Syd— I'm glad you forgave yourself and that she was able to help you realize that. She's right that your forgiveness and hers are two separate things. But of course it hurts that she hasn't forgiven you. It's natural to feel bad about that. Even if you've forgiven yourself, it's natural to feel bad about what you did. That will help you avoid doing it again. But you need to recognize when your shame starts to overwhelm you. I know it's hard, but those are the moments you need to try to give yourself love. How about you tell me about something that happened today that made you feel love?"

David doesn't have to think hard to find an answer. He glances up at the workout area where Kerry is. "Um. When Kerry said— The relay made her feel like we're one big system. That was—" He tightens his hold on the pillow again, but not out of fear.

"It meant a lot to you," Ptonomy says, gently. "Her acceptance?"

David nods. "She's— Everyone has been— I don't mean to—"

"It's okay," Ptonomy soothes. "Just say how you feel."

"Safe," David says, without hesitation. "I know she can't— Not— Physically safe. But—" He gives Lenny a crooked smile. "She's like you were. In Clockworks, how it was— Getting this far— I couldn't have done it without her. And now—" His smile fades. "My thoughts are— They can be really— I don't want her to— And if they're too much, of course Oliver shouldn't relay to her, but— That she even wants to hear— Not because she has to, or—" He rubs at his eyes. "Sorry, I don't know why it's—"

"I can't think of anything more intimate than sharing my thoughts with another person," Ptonomy says. "I'm sorry we had to take that choice away from you to help you."

"You had to," David accepts. "It was— It's still really hard to— It's better now, but—" The shame and fear. They’re like a cord tied around his throat, and sometimes it pulls so tight even his thoughts can't escape. The tighter it gets the more it takes from him, and it's taken so much. But now he has Lenny and Kerry and Amy and all his friends and enough love that he can actually— Breathe. Speak. Hope. Want things. Learn and get better and— See the things he already has. Maybe the cord will never go away, but— Love keeps it loose.

"I'm really glad to hear that," Ptonomy says, warmly. "We know what helps you, what makes you strong. Love makes you strong, David. That love you feel is what makes you strong enough to face your trauma and let us help you through it. That love is going to help you heal your system. Not all by yourself, but with your brothers, one step at a time, just like you're doing with us, just like you did with Lenny. You and Kerry share a system, you and your brothers share a system, we all share a system, and we're all going to make our systems strong. How does that sound?"

It sounds— God, it sounds— Terrifying, but— In a really good way.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So let's talk about how you're going to help your brothers. We're trying to help them see that we're their friends, just like we're your friends, but it's hard for them to trust. When you forgot them, you found new people to share your life with, but they couldn't. They were trapped inside you and even with the relay, they're still trapped."

"I know," David says. "I don't want them to be."

"Of course you don't," Ptonomy says. "You have a lot of compassion for them. You have a lot of love you want to share with them. They've been trying to allow themselves to accept it, just like you did with our love, but they need your help. They've spent their whole lives helping you and now they need you to help them. Are you ready to do that?"

"Yes," David says, firmly.

"Good. It's not going to be easy, for you or for them. But we'll get there as long as we do it together. You already know the pieces we need to work on. You need to share your system's body. You need to allow them to be with you so you can sleep together. I'd like for you to start that tonight if you can."

"Tonight?" David asks, wavering. That's— That's awfully soon.

"There are ways we can do this to make it easier for you," Ptonomy soothes. "But nothing is going to happen without your consent. This won't help anyone if you're unable to sleep or if you wake up scared. And before you can ask, no, they can't sleep instead of you."

David makes a face, because that was absolutely going to be his suggestion. "Okay," he accepts. "So— We need to make enough progress on my— Possession trauma for that."

"That's the goal," Ptonomy says. "That would be a full day for you already, but we also want your brothers to have time in your system's body. I'd like for them to each have their sessions with me while embodied, and then spend time with all of us. I don't want anyone running off to lick their wounds alone. I also don't want you to feel overwhelmed by all of this while you're disembodied. All three times you were triggered to go away, you were detached from your body in some way. The only time you stayed was when Dvd got you back to your body fast enough for us to help you. If it happens again, your brothers will get you back in your body so we can help you."

David leans back. "This is already a lot."

"We know," Ptonomy says. "But that's why we're going over it now. And I want you to tell me: do you feel like it would be easier for you to help your brothers first, or to work on your possession trauma first?"

"Help them first," David says. He's feeling strong right now, he feels like he can really be there for them. "But— If the goal is for us to share our body tonight— Maybe it would be better to give me more time to recover?"

"That's a good idea," Ptonomy says. "How about— We do the possession work first, then make sure you're okay before you step out. Then you helping your brothers could help you feel better. I know you like helping. And remember, just like Kerry and the relay, this isn't all or nothing. You can always tell us that you need a break. I know that's hard for you, but if you don't tell us, we might lose you again. If that cord starts pulling tight, send up a flare so we can loosen it, okay?"

"Okay," David says. He doesn't want to— Go into a dissociative fugue again. That it keeps happening is— Upsetting enough on its own. It makes him feel so— Out of control.

"When you started doing that, it was the only escape you had," Ptonomy says. "You literally had no other way to survive what was happening to you. But now all that does is isolate you from everything that can truly help you get better. That's what bad coping mechanisms do. They help you survive but then they get in the way of living. Your shame does that, too. So does Dvd's anger and Divad's need to control. That was how the three of you survived, but you're more than the ways you survived. You know that. You're love. Dvd and Divad are love, too. It's up to us to help them see that, the way we helped you."

David looks at his brothers. Dvd has his eyes fixed away from David, but David knows he's been listening. Divad is the same. They can't not hear him. Maybe that's been a burden for them for a long time, but— That means they can't not hear his love, too.

He knows— Last time, he tried too hard. He just wanted them all to be better. But healing takes time and work, and the hardest part is the beginning. He's ready to help them now, not just for their system's sake but for their sake. Because they deserve to love and be loved, just like he does.

He deserves love. He doesn't just— _Not_ deserve what was done to him. He deserves love. They deserve love. It feels— Amazing to be able to think that. To have the cord that loose around his neck that he can think that. He wishes he could cut it away for good. Maybe one day he can. It's just going to take— A lot of work and a lot of love and probably a lot of time.

David wants them to have that time. He wants them to heal together, to share the way they're meant to. He truly wants that. But first he has to heal himself.

"Okay," he says, ready. "Let's do this."


	66. Day 10: David deserves to be saved.

"I'd like to take us back to a week ago," Ptonomy begins. "The two of us were sitting together, just like this, down in the cell. Some things happened that upset you. The first was when we talked about when you went to save Amy from Division 3. The second was when Divad took charge of your system's body without permission."

"I remember," David says. Upset is— A generous way to put it.

"Just now, when I mentioned Divad and Dvd sharing your system's body with you tonight. That upset you, too."

David grips at the pillow he's holding. "Yes," he admits.

"What happens when you think about sharing your system's body? How does it feel? What do you think about?"

David's been trying to not think about that at all. But— It's not good for Divad and Dvd to be mental projections all the time. It's not fair to them. It isn't his body, it's theirs. Their system's body. They're a system. He's part of that system. The idea that it's his and his alone— That was just another of Farouk's delusions, like quiet.

"That's a hard idea for you to accept," Ptonomy says. 

Hard is also a generous way to put it. 

"Farouk put a lot of bad ideas into you," Ptonomy says. "You had no way to defend yourself against them, and they've been growing in you for a long time. It's harder to get rid of an old idea than it is to accept a new one. It's even harder when you're trying to swap a bad idea for a good one. That bad idea about your body, that parasite, it doesn't want to let go of you. It doesn't want to lose its territory. It'll do everything it can to kill the good idea before it can grow and take over. So we can't let it hide. We have to get a good hard look at it so we can figure out how to get it out of you without hurting you. Right?"

"Right," David says, but— He's afraid. When he tries to think about all of that— All he can think about is the fear. Like the scars Farouk left behind, it's just— Fear.

"So let's talk about the fear," Ptonomy says. "Fear is a defense mechanism. We get afraid because we sense a threat, because we're vulnerable. We curl up, trying to protect the parts of us that keep us alive. Just like you're doing now."

David reflexively straightens, self-conscious.

Ptonomy smiles. "And now you're defending yourself against your vulnerability itself being exposed."

"Very funny," David grouches. "Yes, I'm afraid."

"Divad and Dvd are parts of you," Ptonomy says, sobering. "They've been dedicated to protecting you and your system's body your whole life. You're relying on their protection now, guarding your mind and body so Farouk can't get back in. So you rely on them, you trust them."

"I have to trust them," David admits. 

"True, but that trust has been earned. Divad and Dvd have proved that, even if they've made mistakes, they have your best interests at heart. They still remember how your system works and they fully accept you as a part of it, no matter what you remember. They've been respectful of your wishes and given you space to heal. And you've returned that trust and respect, allowing them to have time in your system's body so they can heal, too."

David relaxes, thinking of that. "Yes," he agrees. "They've been— I know it's been hard for them, all this, and—" Looking back, understanding the truth about what he is, what they are— They tried so hard to ease him back to the truth. Only appearing as voices at first, and then bringing him to their bedroom to try to help when everything went wrong. And since then, they've been trying their best to only tell him as much as he can handle. "They must know me very well. Who I was."

"You were very close," Ptonomy agrees. "There's a DID term for the way your system works. Co-conscious. Some DID identities only alternate, they don't share their body at the same time. Co-conscious identities share, ideally in what's called healthy multiplicity. That's actually the goal of modern DID therapy: a functional co-relationship with shared responsibility and accountability."

"Healthy multiplicity," David echoes.

"Most systems don't have the option of projection," Ptonomy continues. "So they have to work out how to share their body together. Usually one identity 'fronts' at a time, while the others hang back or go into their inner world. That's how Cary and Kerry work when they're not using physical projection. Your system uses the term 'in charge' for that. Most of the time, you've been in charge and Divad and Dvd hung back, took care of things on the inside. But they've been in charge too, and the three of you are even capable of all being in charge together."

"We are?" David asks. That's the first he's heard of it.

"Dvd and Divad have shared your body together," Ptonomy says. "While you were away. It seems to be very comforting for them. They're not used to being apart like this, as physically separate individuals. When you're spending time with them, you should ask them about it. When you're able to share with them, you can practice, see how it feels for you."

David considers that. It all sounds very— Manageable. But Ptonomy's good at making things manageable. That's how they've gotten this far.

He tries to imagine sharing that way. Not— Losing control of himself, having control taken away from him by force. Something— Mutual. Cooperative. Healthy. Kerry would probably call it nutritious.

"Okay," David says. "I'll ask them." That's a relief, too. Having a safe topic to talk to them about. Everything about their past is so fraught. David hates having to ask them to remember, and finding out how awful his old life was hasn't been great for him either. Maybe if they focus on how they work now, on learning how to be a healthy multiplicity, that will help them build their new system.

"Now that is a good idea," Ptonomy says, approving. "I think that will be extremely nutritious for all three of you." He smiles at that. "But you can't practice until you're able to allow them to share with you. So let's go back to where we left off. What happens when you think about sharing your system's body? How does it feel? What do you think about?"

There's less fear in the way now. "I think about— What happened at Summerland."

"Last year," Ptonomy says. "But that wasn't last year for you. It was, what, a month ago? That's not a lot of time, and you haven't had any real chance to process what happened. It's not surprising that those feelings are still so raw for you."

David nods. Raw is definitely the right word for how he feels about all of that.

"So let's get you processing," Ptonomy says, like it's as simple as that. 

And maybe it is. Maybe all of this— Possession trauma. He just hasn't processed it. Between Oliver finding him on the astral plane and David waking up with a crown on his head in Division 3's cell, he didn't have time to catch his breath, much less process— Anything that happened to him.

"So where do you want to start?" Ptonomy prompts. "Farouk's attack on Division 3? That seems to be a flashpoint for you."

"It is," David admits. "But— It's all— Tangled up." He looks at Lenny and has to look away.

"I know," Lenny says, understanding. "He used me to hurt you."

"I didn't know what you were," David admits. "When I was in Syd and— Everything happened, I saw— Your body. In the wall. And then— In Amy's basement, I thought—" He shifts, struggling. "I saw things all the time, things that weren't real. But sometimes I didn't think real things were real. And you were real, sort of. Mostly?" He sighs. "And it's— That's the thing, because that was always him, doing that to me. Tricking me, making me confused, making me— Crazy. And you know, I accepted it? I accepted that I was schizophrenic. I let that idea become— Such a part of me. And now I know that it was his idea. That I never believed I was schizophrenic until he—" He points at his head, their head. His head. Their head. "Put the idea into me. Took out and put in whatever he wanted. _Made_ me— _Made me_. As a— A person. As David. _He made me_. I'm just— One of his sunrises."

It makes him sick, thinking about that. It makes him want to claw off his own skin. Forget about sharing with Divad and Dvd. He doesn't even want to share with himself. 

"Okay," Ptonomy soothes. "That's pretty tangled. So let's take a moment and then start untangling."

David does some breathing. Untangling sounds— Manageable.

"What do you think about making another list?" Ptonomy asks. "You can write down the different parts of this, cross them off as we go."

"No," David says, reflexively. "I don't— I don't want that in my notebook." It's bad enough that he feels like he's— Contaminated, physically and mentally— His notebook is his new self. He doesn't want this anywhere near it.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "That's fair. How about you use something else to write it? Something completely separate? Not even another notebook. How about— Printer paper?"

David considers that. "Yeah, okay.”

"Lenny, could you?" Ptonomy asks.

Lenny leaves and brings back a clipboard with several plain white sheets and a pen. "Here ya go. And a new pen, so that's separate, too."

David isn't sure if she's mocking him, but then he looks up and sees that she very much isn't. Of course. If anyone understands what he's feeling right now, it's Lenny. Even if it's hard to look at her when he thinks about this— He's incredibly glad she's here.

She even picked a pen that's different than the ones Cary has been giving him. Lenny is the absolute best cruise director ever.

Lenny smiles at that. "Yeah, yeah."

"It sounds like this is going to have to cover everything you remember and know about Farouk's possession of you," Ptonomy says. "That's a lot. But we're not going to do it all at once. We'll make a list, and as new things come up, we'll add them to the list and deal with them when you're ready. Okay?"

"Okay," David says. A list needs a name. He wonders what he should name this one. 'FUCK THE SHIT BEETLE,' he writes, in large block letters, and underlines it firmly.

"Nice," Lenny says, approving. "Just think how good it's gonna feel to start crossing off the shit he did to you. Fuck the shit beetle."

"Fuck the shit beetle," David agrees. He's going to process the hell out of this list so he can crumple it up and shove it down Farouk's throat and make him choke on it.

"Now that's motivation," Ptonomy says. "Let's get started. Write down everything we just talked about."

Even those few things feel enormous. But they’re just untangling, he doesn’t have to think about them beyond just— Naming them. He’s only naming. He can do this.

Made him schizophrenic, David lists. Lived inside him and— Fed on him. Took him over and made him hurt people. Made him forget and— Sculpted him.

The last one makes his stomach turn. All of it makes his stomach turn. God, his whole life is a lie and he was— He was just— _food_. _Prey_. _His whole life._ He tastes bile at the back of his throat. He thinks he might actually—

He makes it to the sink just in time. 

He leans over the counter, his stomach hurting, mouth full of acid. Ptonomy hands him a cup of water, and David washes out. So much for motivated processing. And his cherry pie.

“That didn’t get very far,” David says, weakly. 

“First steps are always the hardest,” Ptonomy says. “You’ve been suppressing all of this for a reason, David. The four things on that list represent an incredible amount of pain. And I know that’s just scratching the surface.”

David whimpers.

“No breaking David,” Lenny warns, displeased.

“We’re going slow,” Ptonomy says. “But we have to keep going. We need to break those big traumas down into pieces David can manage.”

Right now David doesn’t feel like he can manage any trauma. God, how did he think he was going to do all this and help his brothers and share their body?

“You got a little maxed out,” Lenny soothes. “The cruise ship Mental Health hit some waves and you revisited your breakfast.”

That drags a dry laugh out of David. “Revisited my breakfast?”

“Painted the town red? Prayed to the porcelain god? Do sinks count for that?”

“It is porcelain,” Ptonomy says. 

“Oh god, you’re both at it,” David moans. Lenny and Ptonomy are rubbing off on each other, and the world trembles. 

“Hear that?” Ptonomy says. “We got the world shakin’ in its boots.”

“It better shake,” Lenny says, menacingly. 

David isn’t sure what he did in a past life to deserve them. Maybe he built an orphanage. Or he set one on fire. 

Lenny snorts. “Done being seasick? Come on, back to work.”

David trudges back. He wraps himself in the blanket and claims a loveseat. It feels safer, somehow. He grabs the throw pillow, too. He doesn’t care how ridiculous he looks, he has no dignity left and he needs every soothing thing he can get his hands on to get through this. 

Lenny sits down next to him and picks up the clipboard. She considers the list. Then she crosses out ‘Made me schizophrenic.’

“Hey!” David protests. He reaches for the clipboard but Lenny holds it out of reach. 

“Are you schizophrenic now?” Lenny challenges. 

“No, but—“

“Does him making you schizophrenic have anything to do with sharing with your brothers?”

David thinks about that. “No, but it’s— I still need to talk about it.” He wants to talk about it. He wants to be able to cross it off his list himself.

“I’m not stopping you,” Lenny says. “But it’s gonna have to wait.”

“Lenny’s right,” Ptonomy says, sitting down on the sofa. “Our priority today is what affects your system, not just you. If there’s something we can set aside for later, we should. There’s still plenty to get through.”

David huffs. "Fine. But give me back my list."

Lenny hands it back. David pointedly writes the schizophrenic line over again at the bottom of the list so he can cross it off himself later. He hasn't even remotely finished processing that.

He looks at the other items. Okay, they're— They're definitely relevant. He feels queasy again but he breathes through it. 

"Let's start breaking these down," Ptonomy says. "Pick one and we'll talk about it."

David tries. He can't.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, and visibly thinks. "When we put you under for the last memory session, you still had no idea what was happening to you. Then when you came back from the astral plane, suddenly you were different. You had no trouble controlling your powers. You were confident, arrogant. Farouk was in control."

David nods.

"You woke up on the astral plane and Oliver found you," Ptonomy continues. "He told you about the monster? Tried to help you?"

"Yeah," David says. "Um. He said— I didn't know about it because— The monster made me forget. But I didn't— Amy was— I had to get back to Syd."

"You were avoiding what upset you by putting your attention somewhere safer," Ptonomy counters. "That's one of your thought patterns. It's part of your dissociation. But running away from your problems doesn't get rid of them. Not thinking about the monster didn't make it go away."

"I know," David sighs. "I know. It's just—" It's too much, and when things are too much— He just— Needs to think about something that isn't.

"You know that makes you vulnerable," Ptonomy says. "When something upsets you, you need to be able to focus on it, deal with it directly. That's a skill you can learn that will help you deal with difficult situations. Do you think things might have gone differently if you'd stayed and listened to Oliver?"

"I don't know," David says, and he really doesn't. "Oliver was really— Detached, I guess. It's not like I felt safe with him either. He was just— A really strange guy in an ice cube. Sorry, Oliver."

'Apology accepted,' thinks Oliver's voice in his head. 

David's so used to not hearing anything now that it startles him to hear someone else think again. Hearing everyone all the time again is going to be— A lot. And that's beside the fact that he has to deal with what they're actually thinking about. He really does need to talk to Oliver about that.

'When you're free,' Oliver thinks. 'Don't let me distract you.'

David doesn't know what's a distraction anymore. He has so many issues to deal with that no matter where he turns, there's no escape. 

"So make the choice yourself," Lenny says. "Pick what you want to focus on and focus on it. Don't let it sneak off. Pin it down and take it apart."

Pin it down and take it apart. He thinks of— His advisor in college had one of those display cases with pinned bugs inside it. Beetles. Bright, shiny bugs, some with vivid coloring and some with horns. David used to look at it when his advisor was despairing over David's disastrous grades, warning him that he was going to lose his scholarship, telling him he needed to focus on his studies. David tried, but— He didn't understand the classes anymore. Because— He never understood them. Divad was the one who understood them.

It hits him, suddenly, what all of that means. All the things he remembers about— Choosing a college, choosing a major, going to classes and learning, wanting to make something of himself, to go to med school and help people. Those aren't his memories. They're Divad's memories, copied and changed and given to him by Farouk. That's all part of the sunrise. Farouk couldn't just use David's own memories because— He didn't have any of his own, none that were usable. Because he was hanging back. He was just a passenger.

That was _years_. He was a passenger for _years_. He wasn't— Having a healthy multiplicity, not then. There was nothing healthy about him at all. He was just— Someone they carried around. And all the things he remembers doing with Amy, her helping him with his tests, his applications, his essays, helping him move, talking to him on the phone, that entire section of what he thought was his life— 

It wasn't his life at all. _It was Divad's life._

He's vaguely aware of the sound of the pen and clipboard hitting the floor.

"Shit," Lenny says. She snaps her fingers. "David, stay with us. Don't you dare break my streak."

"I'm— I'm okay," David says, though he has no idea if he is. He's just— It was one thing to have fake versions of his own memories. But there's a whole chunk of his life where he remembers _being someone else_. It's just that that someone— Was another part of him, covering for him, pretending to be David Haller. That's— Does he have Dvd's memories, too? Who even is he? Did— Did Farouk— 

Focus. Pin it down and take it apart.

Farouk couldn't force the pieces of David Haller back together. David was— Too broken for his brothers to fix. But Divad and Dvd aren't real to Farouk, they weren't what he wanted even though they're also parts of David Haller. So Farouk figured out a way to fix David. He took the David identity and gave him a new set of memories. He left out the childhood trauma because he had to. He used Divad's memories because he had to, to give David— Continuity. To fill in the huge stretch of time that he spent doing nothing, trapped inside his own body by his brokenness.

Farouk's sunrise wasn't just— Random evil torture. It was him trying to make David— Whole. And he did, in a twisted, monstrous way. Like how giving Lenny a body made out of Amy made her his idea of whole. Farouk doesn't start from scratch. So David— The David he was then, the David he is now— His memories are different, but he's still the same person. Farouk didn't make a new David. He fixed David so he could keep playing with him, keep torturing him.

Farouk didn't just want to keep him alive in the desert. Farouk has wanted to keep him alive for a long, long time. David has to be the same David.

"I'm David," he says, aloud. "I'm really— David."

"Told you," Dvd says, and David looks up to see both Divad and Dvd standing there. 

"I remember being you," David says to Divad. "For years."

"He had to use mine," Divad admits. "Your real memories wouldn't have made sense without us and the monster and— All of it. He did what we couldn't. He fixed you."

"So he could break me again," David says, and that's what happened. Farouk made David whole and then broke him, a little at a time, until— Clockworks. And then Lenny and Syd and Summerland built him back up again, and Farouk played until David broke. And now—

And now.

"Yeah," Dvd says, utterly serious. "I don't care what promises these people make. He's letting them heal you because that's what he wants. He wants to crawl back into our head. Well, he's not getting past me."

"And he's not getting past me," Divad says.

"So that just leaves— Me," David realizes. If Farouk's going to get back inside them— He's going to have to trick his way in, and he knows everything about David, everything. He's not just obsessed with David. He's obsessed with manipulating David, tricking him, putting ideas into him. And now Farouk wants to put a truly monstrous idea into David: himself.

"That's why you gotta get strong," Lenny says. "We gotta make your mind strong so he can't use you, make your whole system strong so he can't break it. You can beat him and you'll know it when you bust through everything that's holding you back."

"You need me to stop him," David realizes. "Again."

"Yeah," Lenny says. "Sorry, man. I told them to just put you somewhere quiet and green."

"Farouk's going to keep hurting you for the rest of your life unless you make the pain stop," Ptonomy says. "That's true about your trauma and unfortunately it's also true about the trauma he wants to inflict on you. We're doing everything we can to keep you safe, to solve this without you, but the odds say we can't solve this without you."

"But Farouk knows," David says, confused. "You said it so he knows."

"He already knows," Ptonomy says. "I told him we weren't going to hurt you for him anymore. But he still needs us to fix you. If that's what he's going to allow us to do, then we're going to put everything we have into it. And that's what you have to do, too. David— He has your memories. He's going to use them. We don't know how, but— He may already be using them. Whatever the next game is, it’s already started."

"It's another race," David realizes, his heart sinking.

"I didn't want it to be," Ptonomy says, regretful. "But yes, it is. But it's not for Farouk's body. It's for you. Your body, your mind, your powers. You're the prize he wants to win. And after losing you twice, I don't think he's going to hold anything back. He got control of you and lost it. He's not going to want to be a passenger again."

All this time, David thought— He didn't know what he thought. He just didn't want to think about Farouk at all, didn't want to think about being forced to end the world. But that was just him being— Stuck in his trauma. Maybe Farouk still wants to end the world, maybe he doesn't. But all this therapy, it isn't about what makes David suicidal and unstable enough to explode, not anymore. It's about what makes him vulnerable enough to be used. It's about finding all the bad ideas growing inside him and getting them out before Farouk can use them to crawl back in.

"And we have to make your relationships strong, too," Ptonomy says. "Divad and Dvd might be able to protect your body, but their minds are as vulnerable as yours. Your relationships with each other need to be strong. All of our relationships need to be strong. He's used all of us against you, David. He'll try to do it again."

David looks around the room. Everyone is watching him. Amy and Kerry and Oliver, Cary and Dvd and Divad, Lenny and Ptonomy.

And Syd. But Syd isn't here.

"He'll use Syd, too," David realizes, his heart sinking even further. Maybe down to his shoes.

"He'll try," Ptonomy says.

If any of his relationships feels insurmountably broken, it's his relationship with Syd. She can't forgive him. What's left of their relationship to save? Farouk covered them with gasoline in the desert, and David set them on fire. It's just— Ashes, now.

"So make a new relationship with her," Ptonomy says. "Just like you're doing with your brothers. Just like you've done with all of us. Maybe you can't be lovers again, but you can still be friends. You don't even have to be that. But you have to make some kind of peace with each other. You forgave yourself, David. You have to forgive her."

"Forgive her?" David asks. "No, I— She's the one who won't forgive me."

"Then why do you freak out every time you talk to her?" Lenny asks.

No, that’s— That’s not—

David looks around. Surely there's someone—

But everyone in the room has been studying him closely for over a week. They can hear his thoughts and they don't dissociate from them the way he does. This is— He thought— He thought he forgave Syd, but he forgave himself? And he keeps thinking Syd doesn't want to talk to him, but he doesn't want to talk to her? All this time—

"I really have to stop dissociating," David groans. 

"You can't," Ptonomy says. "But there are ways to manage it. And you can trust your brothers to help you. That's what they've always done. You've always dissociated, no matter what memories you had. That's how your system exists. When it's too much for you, they take over. That's classic DID. I know all of this is a lot for you, but we're telling you because Divad and Dvd believe you're ready for it. We're trusting their judgement. Trust them to help you like they always have."

David looks at Divad and Dvd. They've always protected him, because he's always been David. And they thought— That was how it had to be, because they thought he was the original, just like Farouk. But he's an identity just like they are. They're all parts of David Haller, they're all Davids. So it's not their job to protect him. It's their job to protect each other, all three of them.

But— David tried to be a hero before, and— Being the hero, that's just another one of Farouk's ideas. Farouk even told him to be a hero in his dream. He wants David to fight back, he wants to use him to play out another round of his twisted hero-villain fantasy.

"Playing the hero," Ptonomy corrects. "You told me that Farouk told you to play the hero. But there's a big difference between playing a hero and being one. Playing the hero? That's you looking to prove yourself, to earn love because you can't love yourself. But being a hero means doing the right thing for other people. It means genuinely engaging with them and giving them the help they need, not the help you want to give. Playing the hero is where you went wrong before. But being a hero is what you're doing here."

"I haven't done anything," David protests.

"We talked about this before, but I know you need reminders," Ptonomy says, with a wry fondness. "Do you think saving someone's life is heroic?"

"Yes," David admits. The conversation is coming back to him now.

"That's what you're doing now," Ptonomy says. "Saving David's life. Or do you think David doesn't deserve to be saved?"

Last time he said no. David didn't deserve to be saved. But— He knows now. He knows who David is and— David doesn't deserve to be tortured anymore. He doesn't deserve to have Farouk crawl into his head and take him over. He deserves— Good things. To stay with his friends. To be happy and— To love and be loved.

David is love, that’s in his foundation. But he isn’t just any old love. David is the love his friends and his family have for him. That love deserves to be saved. 

"Yes," he says, amazed that he can say it. "David deserves to be saved." 

"Then keep saving him," Ptonomy says.


	67. Day 10: Real is overrated.

David crosses out ‘Made me forget and sculpted me.’

It’s not that he’s done processing that horrific part of his reality, not at all. But he understands it enough for now, and accepting it has finally given him the continuity he’s been searching for. Beyond that? He has a lot of work to do and he has to do it fast. He’s finally strong enough to face the truth about his situation. He has to make himself strong enough to change it. 

He turns to his notebook and updates his foundation. 

‘I am David,’ he writes. ‘I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me, it wasn’t my choice. David is love.’

He can’t bring himself to change that last part to an ‘I’ statement. He can’t accept that he’s love, even though he’s trying to. He believes in the love of the people who love him. But actually loving himself, what he is, what he’s been made to be? He can’t do that. He doesn’t know if he ever will. 

But he’s trying. And trying has gotten him farther than he ever imagined it could. 

He does his foundation work and then his mantra work. He feels no need to change his mantra, but it resonates more strongly than ever. He’s strong enough to heal: he’s really starting to believe that one. Just for good measure, he does his wish list, too. 

“You’ve got a whole novel going there,” Lenny teases. 

“It’s more of an autobiography,” David jokes back. It kinda is, though. The very condensed story of his current existence. So condensed it can fit onto a single page. Half a page. That’s— More appropriate than he wants it to be. Looking back, knowing— At least the rough outline of his actual life— He hasn’t done much with it. Granted, he was busy being relentlessly tortured but— The part of his life that he was actually proud of wasn’t even his life. 

Maybe he was too hasty in crossing out that line. It was a shock, realizing all that, and if David's learned anything about himself with all this, it’s that he doesn’t do well with shocks.

“Yeah, that’s why you’re taking a time-out,” Lenny reminds him. “Let that jumbled-up head settle before we start messing with it again.”

“You’re right,” David sighs. He knows she’s right. He’s just— Really impatient to keep going. But the cruise director knows best. 

“How about some company for your time-out?” Lenny offers. “Remember what Ptonomy said, no solo wound-licking.”

That’s an image. “You’re here,” David counters. 

“Me and Ptonomy don’t count,” Lenny says. “How about Amy?”

Amy. “Yeah, that’s—“ For years, he was someone else. Amy was there for that. They— Before David’s life fell apart, they were so close. And now— It's like Benny and Lenny, except he’s Benny. He’s the one who was overwritten. Amy’s like him, remembering two people as one. And he’s like Lenny, remembering a part of his life that didn’t happen to him. 

“Maybe you do count,” David says. “I never asked you about— Since you came back— Being— A sunrise.”

They’re both sunrises: composite people created in Farouk’s image. Farouk took over both of them, trapped them, wore them as masks to hurt people. 

Okay, yeah, a time-out was definitely a good idea.

“I’m not that,” Lenny says, and there’s an edge to her. “I’m just me.”

“But you remember being Benny,” David counters. “You do still remember being Benny? Or did the mainframe—“

“I remember a lot of things,” Lenny admits. “But who cares? We both remember being together so it happened. Just like all that college stuff happened for you and Amy. Who cares if it’s real, if we’re real? Real is overrated.”

“But Amy, Philly— They remember Benny,” David says. “And Benny’s real. If he’s still alive— When all this is over, maybe— If I saw him—“

“Dude, I remember being him, and trust me, you do not want the original,” Lenny says. “He’s the one who helped you destroy your life.”

David looks at Lenny and realizes something. “Do you feel guilty for what Benny did?”

Lenny shrugs. “We had some good times. But I remember stealing all your shit and selling it for drugs right in front of you. You were too fucked up to care. And I made sure you stayed fucked. Benny-me was an asshole, and he made a mess that Lenny-me is still cleaning up.”

David takes that in. “But— Your Benny memories— They’re not really Benny’s. They’re— what, fake versions of my memories of him?”

“Farouk was there, remember? He knows Benny, too. He read that asshole’s mind, like he reads everyone’s mind. We’re his own personal soap opera.”

What was it Clark said about soap operas? Amnesia and evil twins. Yes, that certainly describes David’s life. 

"Okay," David says, trying to process all this. "But— You didn't— When I met you for the actual first time, you didn't help me because of Benny. You didn't know Benny except as— Stories I must have told you about him. So— Do you remember me— Telling you stories about yourself?" Not that he remembers one way or the other. 

Lenny sighs. "You're making my brain hurt. And my brain is a computer."

"Sorry."

Lenny leans her head back. "Fuck," she mutters, eyes closed. Then she faces him again. "Listen. I remember a lot of things. When I got my Amy-body, I got my old memories back, everything up to the end. They're still kinda hazy because I got disembodied again, but— I got what I got. And original recipe Lenny wasn't a good person. Making a cocktail out of me and Benny? It wasn't a big leap. Like it wasn't a big leap to make a cocktail out of you and Divad. So just— Roll with it. Keep the good stuff. You get to remember me instead of Benny. I get to remember getting high with you and eating twice the pussy. And this college stuff— Do you really want to give that up? David Haller still did all that. What is it Dvd keeps saying? If one of you did something, you all did it. Take the win."

Keep the good stuff. That reminds him of his conversation with Kerry about magazines and the world. He told her not to throw the good out with the bad. At the time he hadn't felt able to take his own advice. But— Lenny has a point. They can't change what they remember. They can't unmix their cocktail minds. If he fights what he is, gives up— Years of his life and all the good things in them— That can't make him stronger. 

But it's still— He still feels— Weird and guilty and confused about— All of that. Amy and Divad and Dvd— What they remember, what he remembers—

"So talk to them," Lenny says. "Ask them to come over. They're already hearing everything, so make it a conversation instead of a wiretap."

"Okay," David accepts. He guesses he's ready for some— Family time. The Haller family, sitting together, talking.

He watches as Divad wraps up with Cary, as Amy walks down from the exercise area, as Dvd drags himself over with visible reluctance. David rubs his palms against his thighs, nervous. Amy sits closest to him, then Divad sits next to her. Dvd sits in the opposite loveseat and crosses his arms.

"So, um," David begins. "Yeah. All that." He knows it's a lot. He doesn't know where to start. Everything's— Tangled.

"So let's untangle," Amy says. "That's what we're doing, right?"

That's what David has to do.

"You don't have to do it alone," Amy says, with a wry fondness. "We're part of this, too. Divad, how about you start? They were your memories. And all the things we did together— Those years were ours."

"Yeah," Divad says, roughly. "I was— All of that was me, not David. David was—" He looks at David, and there's such feeling in his eyes. Grief and pain and— And then it goes away.

"You're doing it again," David says, upset. "Please stop that."

"I don't want to hurt you," Divad says.

"You just don't want to hurt," Dvd counters, annoyed. "David already knows what happened. Maybe not everything but he knows enough. You want us to get better? Stop lying to him."

"David," Lenny says. "Tell me what Divad just did."

Of course. Lenny and Amy can only hear Divad, they can't see him. "He was upset," David says. "I saw it. And he— Suppressed himself."

"And suppressing himself— That's him managing his part of your system," Lenny says. "That's what he does for you so you don't need meds. So he's medicating himself."

Divad's not actually in their body— Well he is, but— Projected. "I guess," David says. Mutant powers are weird. All this soul-mind-body stuff—

"I know a junkie when I see one," Lenny declares. "Divad, you're a junkie."

Divad absolutely doesn't like that. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"That is such a junkie thing to say," Lenny says. 

"David took drugs to get high," Divad defends. "So did you. I do what I do to keep my head clear so I can protect us."

"Liar," Dvd grumbles.

"And that's junkie logic," Lenny says. "I was two different junkies and one of them was a dealer so I know a customer when I see one. Dvd says you're turning yourself off and David thinks so, too. You're outvoted."

"That's absurd," Divad says, unimpressed. "Maybe you're projecting because you need a fix and you can't get one."

Lenny laughs. "I like you. But no, shithead. You're always thinking about how David fucked up your life. Well guess what? You're a David, too. And you’re fucking up big time."

Divad glares at her. "I don't have to listen to this."

"Actually, yeah, you do," Lenny says, smugly. "Because if you don't, I'll just tell David what you've been thinking about him, and then you'll have to listen him being upset about it."

If looks could kill, Lenny would be dead for a third time. But Dvd is absolutely delighted. "I like Lenny," Dvd tells David. "Did I ever tell you that? She gets us."

"She does," David agrees, but looks to Divad. "What exactly have you been thinking about me? Because you've both been thinking a lot of things and I don't know any of it. Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy and— And Clark know! And Kerry and Cary! But you won't share anything with me." It's not fair. It's— It makes him feel like a child, like he can't be trusted by his brothers, by his own mind. His own mind keeps secrets from him and that's— It's crazy. It makes him feel absolutely crazy.

Dvd is less delighted by that. "You're not supposed to hear our thoughts. That's not—"

"Don't," David warns. "It doesn't matter how we used to work. We're making a new system and— And I'm not going to be part of a system that lies to me. That's not— Healthy multiplicity. I want us to have healthy multiplicity. I want—" He looks to Lenny. "What did Ptonomy say?"

"A functional co-relationship with shared responsibility and accountability," Lenny says.

"That," David says, firmly. "I want that."

Both Divad and Dvd wear the same expression. It's not an agreeable one.

"I changed my mind about Lenny," Dvd says, and glares at her.

"Guess I've been outvoted," David sighs, and looks to Amy and Lenny for help.

"Maybe it's time we sic Ptonomy on one of these guys," Lenny says. "You stay here with us, and one of them can go have a session. Let him do some of the heavy lifting on this."

"They should both have a session," David grumbles.

Lenny considers that. "Yeah, they should. They like sharing. They can share a session and deal with it together."

"David, will you be okay stepping out for a while?" Amy asks. "It can wait if you need more time."

David takes a moment to check in with his feelings and ground himself. He learned all of that years ago to help manage his anxiety, but it turns out it's good for dissociation, too. He fell out of the habit but he needs to get the habit back. Being outside of his body is risky for him, even aside from detachment syndrome. He needs to stay grounded for a lot of reasons.

He feels— Okay. He has a lot of mixed feelings but they feel manageable. Lenny and Ptonomy have been really good at helping things feel manageable today. But— 

"Maybe—" He looks to Amy. "Could I get a hug first?"

Amy smiles. "Of course." She opens her arms, and David gets up and goes right into them. There's nothing as grounding as this, nothing.

When David feels topped up, he lets go of Amy and sits back on the sofa. He steps out of his body and goes back to the loveseat, relieved of his body's burdens. Divad and Dvd reluctantly go in together. Their body — theirs, not his, remember that — opens their eyes and looks at him.

"You're really both in charge?" David asks, extremely curious. 

"Yeah," they say. 

David suddenly understands why Lenny needed a name for their system. He can't tell who's talking when they're like this. Because they both are? The Davids.

"Can I do that?" David asks.

"You used to," the Davids say. 

"So— When you share like this—"

The Davids look away. "We don't want to talk about it." They stand up and go to join Ptonomy at the table.

David sighs. Making a new system is— About as easy as replacing an old idea with a new one. Except it's a whole bunch of old ideas all joined up, and the new ideas just can't get a foothold. He wants to be a system with them, but— Not as he was. And they still won't accept him as he is.

"They're trying," Lenny says. "Let Ptonomy soften em up for you. Hang out with us. You still want to talk to Amy, right?"

He does. Especially after that hug. 

"Amy," he starts. "All those years—"

"I know," Amy says. "It wasn't you. It was Divad. You were— My poor Davey." 

She looks like she might cry. David's instinct is still to avoid upsetting her, but he can't. And it should be okay for her to cry if she's upset. It should be okay for him to talk about things that upset her. 

"I guess we're working on a new system, too," David says, and wishes she could see him. He wishes he could hug her again. But Divad and Dvd need to be in their body, too. They need to share so they can all heal together.

"We are," Amy says, and wipes her eyes. "Davey, when you were in college, you had a seizure. Do you remember that?”

"A seizure?"

"Dad and I came as soon as we could," Amy says. "You were— Very confused. But then you recovered. You said you were fine."

"I don't remember having a seizure," David says. He doesn't remember being in the hospital or Dad and Amy visiting him because of that. Farouk must have made him forget that, too, to hide the break, preserve his continuity. It's— Deeply unsettling, but— He forgot twenty years of his life, what's a few more days?

What does he remember? No, what did Farouk _make_ him remember? 

"Farouk made me remember— Doing really well in my classes." He was proud of his achievements, of excelling in his schoolwork despite his schizophrenia. "I thought— I could do it because of the medication, because it helped so much. But it stopped helping."

He tried increasing his medication, but that made it harder to think, not easier the way— The way Farouk made him remember it working. Farouk made David remember understanding all the material, even the advanced coursework, extra material his professors gave him to challenge him. But when he tried to use what he knew— He couldn't concentrate and nothing made sense anymore. He felt so confused, so lost and— Stupid. All his professors, his advisor, Amy— They didn't know what to think. He knew so much but somehow he just— Stopped knowing.

Amy was upset with him, everyone was upset, and he felt so ashamed of— All of it. He disappointed everyone, he ruined everything. He couldn't do anything right. His grades flatlined. He got put on academic probation, lost his scholarship, and then he was expelled. He started taking drugs because the medication wasn't helping and he was desperate for something, anything to give him relief. And then things got really bad. 

He blamed himself. Nothing made sense, but— The one thing that made sense was his failure. Because he was broken, he was garbage. He was crazy, he was sick, of course he failed. It was wrong for him to even try to— To be happy, to do something good, to want things. He could never be anything other than what he was. Philly tried to help him, Doctor Poole, Amy. He tried to keep going, tried to get better for them, but— He knew he was never going to get better. The only thing he could do was— Try to make it stop.

So he tied a knot.

But— 

All of that— 

It was torture. It was Farouk torturing him.

"It was," Amy says, pained. "What he did to you— I talked to Cary about what happened and he thinks— You have a version of Divad’s memories for— It must have been at least three years, maybe more. You remember being Divad. But— Farouk didn't give you Divad's knowledge, his skills."

David takes that in. “Memories without knowledge.” That's— That would explain— He was so confused and frustrated because he was certain that he knew, but— He didn't know. Farouk didn't let him know. He thought he forgot somehow, but— He never knew in the first place.

His life fell apart, but— Of course his life fell apart. It wasn't his life.

All those years David remembered being Divad, he was there with Divad, but— He didn't learn with him. He was too broken to learn. 

And then Farouk made him forget that he was broken. Farouk patched him up with false memories, but David was still broken underneath. He had the memories of a genuinely functional David Haller but nothing to back it up. He was given Divad's life but denied everything he needed to live it. The medication didn't help because it never helped because he was never schizophrenic. He had a monster in his head, relentlessly torturing him. 

"It wasn't my fault," David realizes. 

All those years, all that pain and shame and failure, his madness, his downward spiral, his suicide attempt, even Clockworks. All of that, _all of that_ was Farouk torturing him, healing him just so he could make him crazy with fake memories and hallucinations and confusion and fear and—

_He had a monster in his head._

It wasn't his fault. It really, truly wasn't his fault. 

"It wasn't," Amy agrees. "And I'm so sorry for all the things I said to you. I— I didn't get to go to college because I had to take care of you after Mom died. And— When you went I was so proud, but— When you failed— I felt like you'd wasted the chance for both of us. And I was frustrated and angry that you got worse after you'd been so much better, that I had to sacrifice the life I was finally able to build for myself because I had to look after you again. And the drugs and Doctor Poole and— I stopped believing that you'd ever be able to get better. That's— Why I gave up."

"You didn't—" David protests.

"You were my responsibility," Amy says, firmly. "You gave me that and I didn't respect how much— You relied on me to take care of you. You weren't capable of giving yourself the help you needed. You knew that. But I still treated you like you could. I still acted like you were Divad and not— My Davey."

"I guess— You were my Divad," David says. "And Dvd. I didn't remember them, but—"

"You were still the same person you were with them," Amy says, understanding. "You still needed them. And without them— You did the best you could. Philly and Syd and Lenny and— Even Benny. You went to people and trusted them to take care of you. And eventually you found the right people to trust. Even if— It took a while for them to figure you out." She gives a sad smile. "You're a very complicated person, Davey."

"Yeah," David admits. He looks down at his hands. "I knew that— You were angry with me. I heard it. I heard— Everything. I just— Didn't know what was real."

"Divad and Dvd covered for you a lot, even before Divad took charge," Amy says. "They did such a good job. But that meant— We never knew how bad it really was. We couldn't. David, it's so important that we don't go back to that."

"I know," David says. If they all survive this, if they can get Amy a new body and— Even without Farouk making him worse, he still has so much to get better from. His whole system needs to heal and— They need to heal the right way. They can't do that if they're covering up their pain, like Divad and Dvd still are.

David doesn't remember lying to Amy about his brothers or his powers. He doesn't remember knowing about them or the monster. But he must have lied to her. Divad and Dvd's secrecy is more evidence of how things used to be. Maybe even David's fear of upsetting Amy— Even that might be a remnant of his old system. 

"I think your system learned it from us," Amy says. "Me and Mom and Dad. We were never good at talking about our feelings, sharing our pain. You don't remember, but— Mom being sick all the time. Mom and Dad— They didn't want to talk about her illness. They just wanted to focus on the good things. But ignoring our pain—"

"Didn't make it go away," David says, in wry echo of Ptonomy. 

Amy smiles. "See, you're learning. You're making semantic memories."

"Gotta fill up all that empty space somehow," David jokes.

"We will," Amy promises. "It's okay that the old memories are gone. We're going to make so many new ones, happy ones. We're going to fill up all of that space so you'll have lots of good things to remember."

Good memories. David wants that. He wants to add it to his wish list. He reaches for his pen, but his hand goes through it. 

"I could write it for you?" Amy offers. "If that's okay."

David hesitates. His notebook is his new self. But— He wants Amy to be part of his new self. "You can write for me," he says.

He watches as Amy picks up the notebook and pen. She adds 'Good memories' to the bottom of the wish list.

It's so much to ask for. To have good memories, good things have to happen. Time has to pass without anything making the memories bad. If he tries to remember the good memories he has, they only hurt him now. They remind him that the past he remembers isn't real, that he isn't real. That he's— A sunrise. A cocktail. Farouk's creation, his toy, his victim.

"Don't let him decide what you are," Lenny says, and David looks up. "You're David, right? You've always been David. So fuck the shit beetle. It doesn't matter what he did to you. He doesn't get to choose who you are. You do."

David can’t believe that. If he accepts that what happened to him wasn’t his choice— He has to accept that it was Farouk’s choice. Farouk lived inside him since he was a baby and defined every aspect of David's existence. Farouk was his schizophrenia. Farouk gave him his dozen or so actual mental illnesses. Farouk stole his real memories and gave him fake ones, twenty years of fake memories, and then made up for leaving out all that torture by giving him another ten years of torture. He’s asked himself who he is without the monster and now he knows. Without Farouk, he isn’t even David Haller. 

"That's one story," Lenny says. "How about this one? You're David Haller because your parents gave you to the Hallers to keep you safe from a bunch of fascists. Then an asshole parasite infected you, but turns out? Baby David was way stronger than the parasite. It couldn't escape so it hurt you instead. But you fought back. You made a system and your system got strong. No matter what that parasite did, your system kept fighting, kept trying to get help. And then one day you got the right help and you got the parasite out. And now it wants back in, but it can't have you because you don't belong to it or anyone else. You belong to yourself."

"That's a hell of a story," David says. It's a lot better than his old one, but— That's a lot of old ideas to replace with new ones. It's not going to be easy.

"Okay," Lenny says. "Then start small. What's the one part of that you want to believe most?"

David thinks about that. He looks at his notebook, his foundation and mantra and wish list. He thinks about the new self that the notebook represents, the new life he's trying to build. 

"Lenny, could you—" David starts. "I want to change my foundation. I want you to write it for me."

Lenny looks— Shockingly touched by that. "Yeah, okay," she says, casually. She takes the notebook and pen from Amy. "Tell me what you want."

"I am David," David says. "I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself. David is love."

"Nice," Lenny approves.

"That's wonderful," Amy says, with a warm smile.

"I belong to myself," David tries. "I belong to myself." He's not Farouk's David. He's not anyone's David. He's his own David and he chooses what that means. He's his own David and he's going to make sure his system has healthy multiplicity because that's his choice. That's part of who he wants to be. And he can make that choice because he's here and alive and has the strength to heal.

Lenny looks absolutely proud. "I'd high-five you right now, but—"

"Yeah," David says, and rubs the back of his neck. It feels good, the idea that he belongs to himself. It feels very good. He wants to build on that so much. He just has to keep saying it and believing it until it becomes a part of him. And then the delusion inside him, the idea that he's Farouk's, he's going to push that out of his head and never let it back in.


	68. Day 10: What if nothing is ever enough?

“We have a lot to work on together," Ptonomy says. "But first I'm going to ask you the same thing I asked David. How about you start by telling me about your morning? You had a rough day yesterday. How are you feeling now?"

"You already know," Divad and Dvd say together. If they have to put up with telepathic therapy, then they shouldn't have to talk about what everyone already knows.

"It helps David to talk," Ptonomy counters. "It's true, your therapy has involved a lot of discovery. But it's really about how you feel, and talking about how you feel is important." He gives them a considering look. "How about you talk about how it feels to be in charge together? How does that work?"

"None of your business," Divad and Dvd say. That's private. The way their system works is private. 

"You didn't even want to tell David how your system works," Ptonomy says.

Divad and Dvd glance at David. Amy and Lenny are keeping him distracted. Good.

"You still don't want to tell him," Ptonomy realizes. "All right. If it makes you more comfortable, we can speak privately." 'Let's do this through the relay.'

Fine, Divad and Dvd think. But they do relax a little. Ptonomy was sneaky yesterday, getting them to tell David things he wasn’t ready to hear. But all these people, David's friends— They haven't told David what's in Divad and Dvd's thoughts even though they could have. Lenny threatened to, but— They think she was bluffing. She doesn't want to upset David either.

'Why don't you want to tell David how your system works?' Ptonomy asks. 

Divad and Dvd sigh. They do want to tell him. But— It hurts. Him not knowing. He's supposed to know.

Ptonomy nods. 'Your bedroom, the way your powers work, the way your sharing works. He developed all those things with you. And no one else even knew you existed, much less how you worked. It's all truly been private to your system. Except your system wasn't alone inside your body. Farouk knows how your system works, too. So it's important that we know, so we can help you keep yourselves safe.'

Divad and Dvd have to admit that makes sense. 

'Do you always think and speak together when you share?' Ptonomy asks.

They don't have to. They’re still themselves. Divad is the one who makes the sharing work.

'Because Divad can control your body?' Ptonomy asks.

Mutant emotional regulation. Divad never needed a name for it, it's just what he does. But he can do a lot more than regulate emotions. David and Dvd can control the world. Divad controls their body.

'Tell me about that,' Ptonomy says. 'Did your powers start out like this, or did you develop them?'

David must have been able to use all of them before he made them. Their powers already worked when they started to exist. None of them knew all the words for things or the details of how their body and powers functioned. They thought about doing a thing and the thing happened. But he wanted to understand, to learn. The more he learned, the better he was able to help their system.

'Is that how you helped David?' Ptonomy asks. 'How you helped him recover when Farouk left you alone?'

'I helped him, too,' Dvd thinks. 'I didn't need powers. David just needed us to help him feel better.'

'Holding him,' Ptonomy says. 

'Yeah,' Dvd thinks, heartfelt. 'We held him and— We made him better.'

'You comforted him," Ptonomy says. 'You loved him. I know how powerful that must have been for him. For all of you.'

Love helped David a lot, Divad thinks. But it wasn't enough. As they got older, David took longer to recover, and even when he did— He kept getting worse and worse. Divad started covering for David for longer periods. He used those times to study and learn. Their teachers started to notice and encouraged them, helped them apply for their scholarship. Divad started to hope that he could learn enough about their body that he could get the monster out. But Ptonomy already knows how that ended.

'Farouk didn't want Divad Haller,' Ptonomy says. 'He wanted David and he used your memories to fix David in ways you couldn't. That must have been very difficult for you.'

Difficult? It was torture.

'It was,' Ptonomy agrees. 'He even gave David your hopes and dreams. But David couldn't carry them out, not the way you could. He didn't have the knowledge you'd earned through hard work and practice. He was lost and confused and you couldn't do anything to help him or stop him from ruining the life you'd built.'

'It wasn't his life,' Dvd grumbles. 'It was ours and he forgot that.'

And now Dvd never lets him forget that.

'Dvd, you covered for David when you were younger,' Ptonomy says. 'Why did you stop?'

'David needed me,' Dvd insists. 'It wasn't good to leave him alone. If we did— He started thinking bad things. So I stayed with him to protect him from his thoughts and Divad took care of all that outside stuff. I didn't care about it anyway. My job was to keep David safe.'

'Ah, so that's how it happened,' Ptonomy says. 'Your situation changed and both of you adapted to it. So these rigid roles you keep insisting on, they're not so rigid after all.'

Divad and Dvd give Ptonomy an annoyed look.

Ptonomy smiles, amused. 'Is it really such a terrible thing, changing? All of us are always changing all the time. We grow up, we meet new people, we face new circumstances. All three of you have been through a lot of change. Even if David was exactly the way you remembered him from college, the two of you have changed since then. Now you have the chance to change together, to heal together. Why not embrace that?'

It's not that simple, Dvd and Divad think together. Whatever they build, that's what Farouk's going to destroy.

'So you're going to let Farouk stop you from being together?' Ptonomy challenges. 'Your system needs to heal. This is the first real chance you've had to do that for a long time, maybe ever. Stop letting fear hold you back.'

'I'm not afraid,' Dvd insists.

Liar, Divad thinks. They are afraid. They're terrified. And it hurts so much, having to start over with David when David was the one who was there first.

'You know that's not true,' Ptonomy says. 'The David you know was created at the same time as both of you. But he must have been the one to keep the original David's memories. David doesn't just have the memories of two people. He has the memories of three. Maybe even four, if Farouk gave him some of Dvd's memories, too. I wouldn't be surprised if he did.'

Divad and Dvd both have to take that in. David had someone else's memories, even before college. And— David keeping the original David's memories, his name— That's why Farouk still thinks he's the original. That's why they all did.

'Before the three of you were created, David's personality— He was still very young,' Ptonomy says. 'His personality was still forming. But the three of you together add up to one David. You always have and you always will, no matter what memories each of you has or how much you've changed. You are the David Haller system. Do you really want to let Farouk keep you apart now, after everything you've been through, after everything you've done to stay together?'

No, Divad and Dvd think. But— David not knowing them hurts.

'Of course it does,' Ptonomy says. 'This has been painful for all three of you. You've all lost things you'll never get back. But you're here and you're not alone. That's in David's foundation. Maybe it should be part of yours, too.'

David said he wanted to make a foundation for their system, Divad thinks. That they have to stay alive for each other.

'If that's something you all agree on, how about you write it down?' Ptonomy asks. 'You can show it to David when we finish. I'm sure he'd like that.'

They think about that. They want it, they do, but— They can't stop thinking about college.

'What do you actually remember about what happened?' Ptonomy asks. 'I think it would help you both to talk about it.'

They think back. The last thing they remember before it happened— They were in their dorm room, studying. Divad was studying. David and Dvd were keeping guard, and Dvd was keeping David company. That was how they worked, then. That was how they kept their system safe. 

Divad was so excited about how challenging all the material was, how much he was learning. He was getting close to figuring out how to save them, he could feel it. And then— Everything went away. They lost control of their body. A seizure, a grand mal, and then—

'We woke up in the hospital,' Dvd thinks. 'I woke up first but I couldn't do anything. Divad couldn't either. When David finally woke up, he was really confused.'

The doctors told David it was normal to be confused after a seizure. At first, they thought maybe that explained everything. But David didn't remember them, and he remembered things that he shouldn't have, he remembered being Divad. He didn't even know they were there, trapped inside their body, screaming at him. He didn't know about his powers, he thought the voices he heard were part of his schizophrenia, and he believed he was schizophrenic. They were never schizophrenic. But David had forgot about the monster, too. And the monster was back, making David hear and see things, making him worse when he was already so scared and confused. 

'You had to watch David be tortured, and you couldn't do anything to help him or yourselves,' Ptonomy says, sympathetic. 'That must have been unbearable.'

It was. It was— God, it was— There aren't words for how bad it was. There aren't even thoughts.

'That's what's stopping you now,' Ptonomy says. 'That trauma is why you're afraid to hope, why you're afraid to truly accept David back into your system, into your hearts. You went through something incredibly horrific and you don't want to go through it again.'

They don't. They can't. It was so— Their heart hurts even thinking about it.

'Stay with the feeling,' Ptonomy urges. 'Don't drown it with anger, don't suppress your emotions.'

They have to, Divad and Dvd think. It hurts too much.

'What Lenny said before, about Divad being a junkie,' Ptonomy says. 'She has a point. But your problem isn't addiction, it's trauma. We all have different ways to cope with our trauma, but we can become dysfunctionally dependent on those coping mechanisms. David dissociates and he did use drugs to help him separate him from his trauma, to float away from it. Dvd, you use anger to push your trauma away. And Divad, you abuse your powers.'

Divad isn't a junkie.

'You're not a junkie,' Ptonomy agrees. 'But you are abusing your powers. It's a common problem with mutants. I abused my memory powers. I helped a lot of people face their traumatic memories. Remembering helped them. So I thought if I always faced my trauma, if I lived in it, it couldn't hurt me. But I was wrong. Oliver helped a lot of traumatized people, too, and just like me he couldn't help but make their pain his own. He dealt with it by astral projecting, by detaching from his body to escape the pain inside it. But he did it so much he lost himself, and all the people who love him lost him, too.'

Divad— 

'Go on,' Ptonomy prompts. 'Stay with the thought.'

Divad doesn't— There isn't anyone who loves him. 

'What about your brothers?' Ptonomy asks.

Dvd hates him. David doesn't know him, but— When he knows what Divad did to him, he'll hate him, too. No one would care if he suppressed himself forever. They don't want him. The only thing he's good for is helping David. 

'That's stupid,' Dvd grumbles. 'You're the one who doesn't even want to be in our system anymore.'

That's not what he wants! He never wanted that. He took them to college to save them, not because he wanted to steal David's life. He wanted to help David, to help all of them, and David was too broken to be in charge. And Dvd and David had each other, they didn't need him and Dvd was always yelling at him to stay in charge if he loved it so much.

'You loved being in charge,' Dvd accuses. 'If you'd fixed David, you wouldn't have let him be in charge again.'

He would have. It was David's life, not his. He wrote David's name on everything all the time. David Haller, not Divad Haller. The degree he earned, if he'd been able to finish earning it, would have been David's degree. He was only covering for David.

'Liar,' Dvd says, angrily. 'Admit it. Admit you loved it!'

Fine! He loved it! He loved being in charge, okay? He loved being useful to more than just their system. He loved getting straight As and having the approval of his professors and his advisor. He loved college and learning and— Being in charge. Having a life, his life, and choosing to do what he wanted to do. David and Dvd didn't care anymore, so why shouldn't he make the choices himself?

'It wasn't fair,' Dvd insists. 'Maybe I wanted to be in charge again sometimes, but— David needed me and you weren't safe for him! You didn't care about him, not the way I did. Before you were in charge all the time, you were always yelling at him, making him worse.'

David kept making mistakes. He kept making the wrong choices. Divad was just trying to help him make the right ones.

'The monster never gave him any good choices,' Dvd thinks, angrily. 'That's what it does. You knew that but you didn't care. You kept yelling at him anyway. You were glad when David took too long to get better. You stopped helping him and that's why he never got better, that's why you had to take over. It's your fault!'

'That's enough, both of you,' Ptonomy warns. 'Blame won't help anyone. Punishing each other won't help anyone. It won't help David and it won't help your system. There are some real issues here but you're both talking past each other. I'm going tell you what I just heard, and you're both going to listen. Okay?'

‘Okay,’ they grumble.

Ptonomy takes a moment. 'When you were young, the three of you loved each other unconditionally. That love helped David heal. But as you each grew older, you changed. Divad, you survive on logic, rational thinking, but also anger. When you saw the monster manipulating David, you tried to help him, but you punished him instead. The monster used that against you. The more he tricked David, the more he provoked you into punishing David. You knew what you were doing wasn't helping but you couldn’t stop being angry, so you tried to fix the problem another way. Instead of patching David up just so the monster could break him again, you let David stay broken so you could get the monster out. If you could get rid of the monster, you could help David and it wouldn't be for nothing. You let David suffer in the short-term so you could find a long-term solution. Does that sound right?'

Yes, Divad thinks.

'And Dvd,' Ptonomy continues. 'When Divad punished David, that made you angry. The more help David needed, the more you sacrificed yourself to protect him. You stopped taking your turn being in charge because you didn't want to leave David with Divad. But you resented that and you took your anger out on Divad. Even though you knew Divad was trying to find a way to stop the monster for good, you couldn't see past the fact that David was suffering and couldn't heal. You were jealous that Divad had the freedom you didn't. You continued to love and protect David, but you punished Divad for his freedom and for letting David suffer.'

'And so what?' Dvd thinks, angrily. 'He deserves to be punished. He let David suffer! On purpose! That's even worse than I thought!'

'If Divad had healed David, what would have happened?' Ptonomy challenges. 'The monster would have broken him again, given him even more trauma. Letting David stay broken was the logical solution. And Divad thought he was close to a real solution. He probably was. That's why the monster had to intervene. He had to shut you down for good because Divad was a real threat to him.'

'I guess,' Dvd thinks, reluctantly.

Divad never wanted to hurt David. He just wanted the torture to stop, he wanted the monster gone so their system would truly be safe. The times the monster left them alone, the monster was just using those to make the next torture worse. It saw how they healed and used that to make the next break worse. Every time it was worse, and Divad couldn't let David be tortured like that anymore. But the only way to do that was to refuse to heal David. Even if Dvd hated him forever, it would all be worth it when they got the monster out. David would never be tortured again, and then Divad would be able to heal him using everything he'd learned in college and they would all be okay. It was the logical solution.

'It was a very good plan,' Ptonomy agrees. 'But it wasn't good enough. Farouk couldn't let that threat stand, and in the race between his plan and yours, his won. And that's exactly the same situation we're facing now. All of us against Farouk, racing for a solution. Letting your system stay broken wasn't the answer in college and it isn't the answer now.'

'You know so much, you tell us the answer,' Dvd challenges.

'Farouk isn't just a monster to us now,' Ptonomy says. 'We know who he is and what he wants. What he wants is to get back inside of David, to control him, to claim him and his powers. So we need your system to be too strong to let him do that. That means David needs to understand himself and your system. That means you need to open up to him and trust him the way he's trying to trust you. You need to be whole so Farouk can't break you. David's made a lot of progress towards that, but he can't do it without you. The two of you have always protected David, but you have to adapt to what he needs now, to what's healthy for your system now. And what he needs is for you to stop blaming each other. He needs you to make peace with your past and accept him as he is.'

'What if that's not enough?' they ask. 'What if nothing is ever enough?'

'Maybe that would be true if you were doing this on your own,' Ptonomy allows. 'But this time is different because you're not alone. You have us. I know it's difficult for you to trust anyone outside of your system, I know you haven't known us for very long. But we promised David we would be with him every step of the way, and that promise is for you, too. It's for the David Haller system. We got the monster out of you. Trust us to help you keep it out and stop it once and for all.'

It's so hard for them to trust. They barely even trust each other anymore, much less a bunch of strangers. But— David trusts them and they've helped David so much, really helped him. They got the monster out. They stopped David from wanting to die. They got David to start accepting that he's part of their system. David is better and he wants their whole system to keep getting better with them.

Ptonomy's right. The monster has been tearing them apart for a long time. He made them turn their anger inward so they hurt each other instead of protecting each other the way they were meant to. David said— he said they're all Davids. So it's not their job to protect him. It's their job to protect each other, all three of them.

They want that. They want their system to be like it was. Not when they were in college, but— When they were young. 

'Don't go back,' Ptonomy cautions. 'None of you are who you were back then. You were children. Now you're adults. You've all learned a lot. Keep that knowledge but let go of your anger and pain. Let go of your mistakes, learn from them and move on. Forgive each other. Heal and grow together. That's all you ever wanted. You can have that now because we got the monster out. Don't waste this chance. We don't know how long it will last.'

'We'll try,' they think. They have to try. For David, for their system, they have to try.

'Excellent,' Ptonomy says. 'That's all you have to do. So how about you take the first steps together? What would you like to say to each other? What will help your system heal?'

Divad feels he should go first. When he decided to let David stay broken— He made a mistake because he made that decision on his own. He should have talked about it with his brothers. Maybe if he had— They could have made a better plan. They wouldn't have wasted so much energy fighting each other. They would have been stronger, and if they'd worked together, they might have been able to protect their system from what happened to it. Even though Divad was trying to do the right thing for all of them— It was wrong to do it without them. He was playing the hero instead of being a hero. 

'You were,' Dvd thinks, with grumpy satisfaction. 

'Dvd,' Ptonomy chides.

'Okay, okay,' Dvd thinks. 'You were trying to do the right thing for us. Not just— Play the monster's game. If you're sorry for making decisions without us— Then I'm sorry for— Deciding to punish you instead of— I don't know. Talking, I guess. We should have talked. All that yelling— It wasn't good for David.'

It wasn't good for any of them. Divad is sorry for all of that, for making their system worse when he was trying to make it better. He— He loves his brothers, he always has. He didn't ever want to hurt them. He just— Made a mistake. It seemed like— The right choice. The only choice. It seemed necessary, even though it wasn't.

'That's how traumatic situations are,' Ptonomy says. 'When bad things happen, it's difficult to make the right decision. It's even harder when someone is doing everything they can to trick you into thinking the wrong decision is the right one. The three of you need to be able to work together, to talk and make decisions together, so when a crisis happens, you can make the best possible choice together. And you can ask us, so you're not making decisions alone like you were after the orb brought you back.'

Divad and Dvd didn't think of it as making decisions alone. The three of them made their plan together. But they were tricked, again, like they were always tricked.

'Farouk is good at tricks,' Ptonomy allows. 'He knows our thoughts and that makes it easy for him to set us up with painful choices. But if you trust us, together we can be smarter than the monster, we can make our own choices. This isn't all happening inside your head anymore. This is happening in the world. The monster is just a man and one man can't control the whole world. The world is full of so many people thinking so many things. One man can't read all those minds at once. He can't make a plan to account for billions of people. It only takes a few of those billions of people to give you the right kind of help. So let us help. Cary and Kerry. Me and Lenny and Oliver. Amy and Syd. Will you let us be your friends?'

'We'll try,' they agree.

Ptonomy smiles again. "Then how about we take a break? It's about lunchtime. How about you have lunch with your friends?"

"Yeah, okay," they say. Lunch with their friends. Not just David's friends, but their friends. They tried to accept David's friends before and they couldn't, but— Maybe they just need to try again.

"How about you talk to someone while I go pick up our lunch order?" Ptonomy suggests. "Who do you want to talk to?"

They look around the room. David's with Amy and Lenny and seems happy, they don't want to interrupt that. And Cary is busy and Oliver is relaying. Divad likes talking to Cary, but— 

"Kerry," they say. "We want to talk to Kerry." David loves Kerry so much, and— They want to understand how Kerry made David love her, so David will love them the way he loves her.

"Kerry it is," Ptonomy says. "How about making your lunch just the three of you? It's easier to get to know someone when you can talk to them alone. You can eat in the loft. The rest of us will be fine."

"Yes, we like that better," they say. David's right. Ptonomy is really good at making things feel manageable. David's made a lot of friends, but they never made any for themselves, not even in college. David loves Kerry, he has a system with her, so— They should try to make a system with her, too.


	69. Day 10: So you think I'm the nice one?

Dvd would never admit it, but he's glad he and Divad have to share their body together because of this detachment thing. He doesn't like being in their body alone. It's not that he's afraid, it's not that he doesn't want to be in charge. It's just— Unnatural, being the only one inside while his brothers are projected. They're supposed to share. They're supposed to share with _David_ , but David isn't ready for that so sharing with just Divad is close enough.

They're going to share with David tonight, which— Dvd's trying not to get too intense about that because he knows that it freaks David out now when Dvd gets intense. But intense was how they worked. Those last few years, Divad had the world but David and Dvd only had each other. Dvd's intensity made David feel safe and kept him from thinking bad things. They _were_ each other's world.

That's not how they work anymore.

All these people who claim to love David— Dvd can't know for sure if it's true until they get the crown off, and even then there'll be no way to know what Ptonomy and Amy and Lenny are really thinking inside the mainframe. It might all still be another trick. They can pretty it up all they want, but these people need them to stop Farouk _again_ and don't think Dvd didn't notice that. 

But none of that matters, not right now, not to Dvd. It’s Dvd’s job to take care of David, period, end of sentence. When David wanted to take Syd and Lenny-Amy with them to a farm somewhere, Dvd accepted that, even though Syd tried to kill them and they didn't even know if Lenny was Lenny. And now David has made all these people the foundation of his recovery: Kerry, Amy, and Lenny, but also Cary, Ptonomy, and Oliver. Dvd doesn’t trust them but he has to accept them.

The Syd situation is— Difficult to assess. 

This would all be a lot easier if David made _Dvd_ the foundation of his recovery like he used to. But David was too broken for Dvd to fix before college, and David is definitely too broken for Dvd to fix now, even with Divad finally doing his job again. Dvd really wants to be furious about Divad leaving David broken on purpose, but he’s trying to forgive Divad for that. It’s not easy but he’s trying, because that’s what David needs. Dvd is trying very hard to be what David needs now, because being what David needed ten years ago isn’t working.

That’s why he needs to talk to Kerry. With everyone else, it’s complicated. But Kerry— David loves Kerry the way David used to love Dvd. Kerry’s love feels unconditional and safe to David, and David yearns for that even though it makes him confused, because David never really gets why anyone would love him. It’s really fucking tragic if you ask Dvd, but that’s just how David works, and Dvd always accepts David as he is.

Or at least he’s trying to. 

And now that he’s thought all of that, he doesn’t have to say any of it. So Kerry can just— Tell him what to do so David will love him the way he loves her. 

“Um,” Kerry says, visibly bewildered. “Ptonomy said not to talk back to your thoughts.”

Dvd huffs. “I’m not saying any of that out loud.”

“Any of what?” Divad asks. 

“None of your business,” Dvd says. “This is private between me and Kerry.”

“If you’re thinking something, the only people who can’t hear it are me and David,” Divad reminds him. 

“Exactly,” Dvd says.

That pisses Divad off. “You trust them more than you trust me?”

“Kerry didn’t let David stay broken for years _on purpose_ so she could steal his life,” Dvd says, and okay, so much for not being furious about that. He’s really furious. 

"Say that one more time and I'm leaving," Divad warns. "And don't lie to me, I know you don't want that, I can feel our cortisol rising already."

"Don't manage me just because we're sharing," Dvd warns back. 

"I'm not doing anything," Divad replies. "That's what I'm supposed to do, right? Just be myself? Well here I am."

"Everything okay up here?" It's Amy, carrying a tray with their lunch. 

"You're supposed to be with David," Dvd tells her. 

"David's got plenty of company," Amy says. She sets down the tray and hands them their food. "Kerry, is it all right if I join you?"

"Please," Kerry sighs. "They're really— Intense."

“Divad was thinking things at Kerry, too,” Dvd tells Amy. He's not the only intense one. Divad is always pretending he’s better than everyone but he’s not. 

“Maybe I was,” Divad says, crossing their arms defensively. “Maybe that’s none of _your_ business.”

"Those two are definitely brothers," Amy tells Kerry.

"David and Cary aren't like them," Kerry says. 

"David's had his difficult moments," Amy says, which Dvd thinks is an incredible understatement. "Haven't you and Cary ever fought?"

"I guess," Kerry says. "But I don't like fighting with Cary. All Divad and Dvd do is fight with each other."

"That's not quite true," Amy says. "Divad, Dvd, you're not just fighting now. You're sharing your body together. That must take a lot of cooperation. When Ptonomy and Lenny and I were sharing one Vermillion, we had to cooperate so we didn't try to do two things at once. It must be the same for you."

"I guess," Dvd shrugs. "We've shared for our whole lives so it's easy."

"It's easy for you," Divad counters. "I'm the one doing all the work."

"What happens if you disagree?" Kerry asks them. "Do you, like, fight over how to move your hands? Could you poke yourself in the eye or would the other one stop you?"

Divad doesn't answer, which means he doesn't want to talk about it, so Dvd takes the opportunity to get one over on him. "Do you have to stop yourself from poking yourself in the eye? No. So neither do we."

"When the three of you were young, did you share a lot?" Amy asks. 

"Most of the time," Dvd says. "David liked it, it made him feel safe." It made them all feel safe. There was a monster in their head, they had to stick together. And it made it easier to cover for David.

"So all the things I did with David," Amy says. "I really did do them with all of you?"

"Yeah," Divad and Dvd say together. They think about their childhood, being with Amy and their parents. It hurts that David doesn't remember that they were there with him. It hurts that David barely remembers their parents.

"But you remember," Amy says, looking at them with such feeling, and— Dvd realized that it means a lot to her, that they remember what David can't. And he realizes— It means a lot to him. Amy remembering what happened, Amy knowing they were there and— Being happy about it.

Dvd's been so focused on David forgetting, he's been so angry at Amy for Clockworks. But Amy remembers.

"You remember," Dvd says aloud, so Divad can hear it, too. 

"I do," Amy says, meaningfully. "You really are my little brothers. We've shared so much together. I wish I'd understood the three of you better, I wish I'd known everything. But I know who you are and I love and accept you. All of you." She holds out her hand.

Divad and Dvd look at it, uncertain. They're still angry about Clockworks. But— David forgave Amy for that, he really did forgive her. And when one of them does something—

If Divad had moved their hand first, Dvd might have resisted the action. But Divad lets Dvd decide, and Dvd— Cautiously reaches out. It's familiar and strange to hold Amy's hand without David. But they held Amy's hand plenty of times while David was away.

Amy's smile is warm and wide. She squeezes their hand, and Divad and Dvd feel their body well up with emotions. It's exactly the kind of emotions that Dvd would get angry about and Divad would suppress. But they’re trying something new, so they focus on Amy's hand and let the feeling happen.

"My brothers," Amy says, and they can see that she means it. "We're family. I want our family to be a safe place for all of us. I want us to be able to share with each other, talk about how we're feeling, and have it be okay if we're upset. It's okay that you're upset with me. I won't love you any less because of that. I'll love you more."

Dvd feels too much to answer that. But he lets Divad know what he thinks so he can say it.

"We'd like that," Divad answers for them, their voice rough. "We, um—" He wipes their eyes. "Clockworks— You left us there."

"I did," Amy says. "I'm so sorry. It was wrong of me and I won't ever do it again. I won't ever leave my brothers again, okay?"

"You can't promise that," Dvd says. What if Amy is taken again? What if they're taken again? The world isn't safe, especially not with the shit beetle in it.

"Okay," Amy says. "Then— I promise that if we're ever apart, I'll do everything I can to bring us back together again. All four of us. How does that sound?"

It's a good promise. Dvd wants to believe it so much. Being angry at Amy— Even though it's justified, even though she deserves their anger— It hurts to be angry with her.

"But you're angry with Divad that way," Kerry says. "I know I'm not supposed to talk back to your thoughts but— If being angry with each other hurts, you should stop doing it. You should forgive each other so you'll feel better. Cary and I always feel better when we forgive each other. Staying mad is stupid."

"No offense," Divad says, definitely meaning offense, "But you and Cary don't exactly have a lot to be mad about."

"That's because we don't stay mad on purpose like you two," Kerry declares. "We talk about how we feel and then we feel better and we hug. It's easy. You want to figure out how to be with David? Try doing that."

Divad gives her a skeptical look, but Dvd pushes it away. This is important. "Is that how you made David love you?" he asks.

"I didn't make David do anything," Kerry says, firmly. "All I did was keep him company and— I did what I do with Cary. I talked about how I feel and he talked about he feels and we hugged. He really helped me and I told him that until he actually heard it. You know, until the relay I thought David was really quiet but he's, like, the _loudest_. He's just inside-loud. I think that's why he doesn't listen to people. He can't hear us over his thoughts. Divad is really inside-loud, too. But Dvd, you're not too bad. You're like me, you're all about keeping everybody safe."

"I'm about keeping David safe," Dvd corrects.

"Yeah, well, I used to be about keeping Cary safe," Kerry says. "But now I'm in charge of Division 3's tactical combat team. That means I keep everyone safe. I wasn't really doing my job with that before and I feel bad about that because maybe I could have protected David and Melanie and Ptonomy. But I'm doing it now. We all screw up sometimes but it's okay. We just have to ask for help and keep trying."

Dvd gives Kerry a skeptical look for that, but she's so earnest about everything. Kerry doesn't really do lying. When they could read her mind, they knew that Kerry always said what she thought. The question isn't if she's lying. The question is if she's right.

And the kicker is— She must be right about some of that because David loves her.

Is it really that simple?

Dvd shares his thoughts with Divad and thinks. David made them. No— David _became_ them, all three of them. So they never had to make friends with each other because they just— Were. They didn't have to make the effort to keep each other company because they share the same body, because they're three parts of one system. But not all systems are like them. A lot of systems don't even know they're systems, just like David didn't know. And even if they know, they don't have to get along.

Their system worked the way it did because they wanted it to. That's how their powers work, too. They wanted to to share everything so they shared everything. But they changed, they all changed and things happened and— 

And now they're making a new system for the people they are now. That's what they're trying to do. And Dvd's been watching David and— Kerry's right. All she did was be with David and listen to him and talk to him about her feelings.

"She accepted him," Amy says. "That's what makes us feel safe, isn't it? Being known, for all our faults, and still accepted. And when two people accept each other as they are— Isn't that what love is?"

Yes, Dvd thinks. That's what love was for him and David before. Divad was always telling David what he did wrong, but Dvd just accepted David and loved him, and David accepted and loved him back.

"So I just have to accept David and he'll love me?" Dvd asks.

"Both of you have to accept each other," Amy corrects. "David wants to love you, but he needs to know you first. He needs to be comfortable with you. He needs to see that you accept who he is now, that you're not just trying to make him into who he was. He's very sensitive to that."

Dvd knows that's true. David is working hard to figure out who he is as a person and who he is as part of their system. He's struggling because deep down he doesn't believe he belongs to himself. He thinks he belongs to whoever wants him.

"That's a very good observation," Amy says. "That's part of why David has so much trouble saying no. He doesn't think he's worth anything himself, so he can only be worth what he is to others. And he's so afraid they'll reject him, he'll do anything for them. I feel that way sometimes. I think a lot of people do. Do you feel that way?"

"Me?" Dvd asks, surprised. "I'm not afraid."

"You're totally afraid," Kerry declares. "You're afraid that even if you accept David, he won't accept you back."

"Kerry," Amy cautions.

"I'm right, though," Kerry insists. "And Divad's afraid no one will ever accept him. And—"

"Kerry," Amy says again, firmly. "You're abusing the relay."

"Oh," Kerry says, backing down. "Sorry, Davids."

Dvd realizes then that Divad pulled their hand away from Amy. He tries to push past Divad's resistance to take it again, but Divad keeps resisting. When Dvd pushes again— Divad abruptly leaves their body.

"Hey!" Dvd calls after him. "What the hell?"

Divad doesn't answer. He just walks away and goes down the steps. That's the second time Divad has just up and left their body with no warning. At least this time Dvd can keep them from hitting their head. For the alter that's supposed to be in charge of their body, he's being absolutely reckless with it.

Kerry looks guilty. Whatever Divad is thinking now, it looks like Kerry hit a nerve. Maybe a whole bundle of nerves.

"Divad's really mean," Kerry sighs. "When I met you guys I thought he was the nice one and you were the mean one, but it's the other way around."

"Divad thinks of himself as David's logic," Amy says. "Pure logic can be very cruel."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Dvd grumbles. He's had to defend David from Divad's 'logic' for decades. "If you ask me, he's more like David's unbearable judgemental asshole."

Kerry snort-laughs and then covers her mouth. "He totally is," she whispers.

Amy visibly admits her own frustration. "He's trying," she says. "And he judges himself just as harshly as he judges everyone else."

"So you think I'm the nice one?" Dvd asks Kerry, intrigued.

"Well, you're not as nice as David," Kerry says. "You can be kind of a jerk. But you really do love David a lot, just like I love Cary. If Cary forgot who I was and got brainwashed— I'd be kind of a jerk about it, too."

Dvd looks at Kerry, really looks at her. He looks at people a lot, but only to assess them as threats. He doesn't look at them to— Engage with them. But Kerry was the first person who interested him when all this started, even though he was using talking to her as an excuse to try to get the crown off. And then she punched him really hard and kicked him in the shins.

But Dvd gets that. He's done a lot worse than that to people for threatening David. So Kerry knocking him around because she thinks he's a threat to David, he gets that. He respects it. She loves David the way he loves David, but more importantly— She loves Now David the way Dvd needs to love Now David.

What was it Amy said?

"You and David need to get to know each other," Amy says, reminding him. "You need to be comfortable with each other. And he needs to know you're accepting him for who he is now, not who you want him to be."

"You know," Kerry says, thoughtful. "You're a lot like me. If I think something, I just say it. So why do you need to hide your thoughts from David if you're just going to say what you think anyway?"

Dvd's instinct is to say that he has to guard his thoughts from David because that's how they work. But they don't work that way anymore. 

"I'm sure hearing your thoughts would mean a lot to David," Amy says. "There's nothing more intimate than sharing your thoughts with someone. If you love him as he is now— He'll know you accept him. He'll get to know you and that will help him accept you."

Dvd considers that. It feels risky. If he thinks the wrong things, he'll upset David.

"I was just talking to David about that earlier," Amy says, wryly. "How our whole family was afraid to admit how we felt. But knowing what I know now, I realized— David always knew. He heard everything we thought. But we wouldn't admit our feelings, so— He must have felt very bad about that. Like we were lying to him, when really we were lying to ourselves. Is that true?"

"Yeah," Dvd admits. "David— The things he heard— They ate away at him. After Mom died— He heard you guys thinking things about him that you thought about her, and that—" Their throat tightens. That was the beginning of the end, looking back. A few terrible years later, David gave up on being in charge. He didn't want to talk to Amy and Dad anymore, didn't want to listen to their disappointment and sadness and anger while they lied to his face. He knew— That they would be relieved if he died.

"Oh," Amy says, quietly devastated.

"It's not just Clockworks," Dvd admits. "David doesn't remember but— You and Mom and Dad hurt David a lot. You thought he was crazy and he wasn't. He begged you for help and you forced him to take medication he didn't need and—"

"Dvd," Amy says, sadly. "We didn't just do those things to David. We did them to all three of you. David can't remember that, but you and Divad, you can."

Their eyes are wet again, but Dvd's getting used to that. "Yeah," he says, and wipes at them.

"I wish I could apologize to David for that," Amy says. "But it wouldn't mean anything to him because that's not what he remembers. But I can apologize to you for hurting you. For thinking— Terrible things about you. For making you take medication you didn't need. But most of all, I'm sorry for not listening to you. I should have listened, I should have believed you. You're my brother."

Dvd wipes at their eyes, then grabs his napkin and blows their nose with it. He doesn't know why this is— It's David who— Being alone in their body—

"It's just how you feel," Amy says. "There doesn't need to be a reason. It's okay to feel whatever you feel. So what do you feel?"

Dvd feels— Beneath his anger, he feels—

 _Awful._ Sad, hurt, betrayed, guilty. Terrified and grieving and angry, furiously angry, and— And he wants all that to be David’s, he wants to be only David's anger so he can protect him, but Dvd shared everything with David and that means— It means he shared every bad thing that happened to him. It means he shared so much pain. And now David doesn't remember anything and Dvd has to hold it all alone.

"You're not holding it alone," Amy says. "If you need to share it with someone, if you can't share it with David or Divad— Can you share it with us?"

Dvd doesn't know. Amy and Mom and Dad caused so much of that pain. Them and the doctors, the shit beetle used them to torture David, to torture all of them.

"If I'd known the truth," Amy says, leaning forward. "I swear to you, if I'd known the truth— I wish Mom and Dad had told me. But they were too afraid. You know, you remember. Was that what happened?"

Dvd nods. He wipes their eyes again. "They told us to never tell anyone ever. That if we did— People would hurt us. They taught David before he made us, and we knew because he knew. But—"

"But what?" Amy encourages.

"They were afraid of us," Dvd admits. "Of David. Our powers. They were afraid we would hurt someone because we were a mutant and crazy. That's why they didn't want to listen to us. David heard it and he told us."

"Oh Dvd," Amy sighs. "I'm so, so sorry."

Their parents were afraid for them and of them and— They had no idea what to do with a kid as powerful as David, much less one with a mental parasite. Their real parents should have kept them even if it was dangerous. Being a lone mutant was even more dangerous. If their parents had to leave them with someone, they should have left them at Summerland. Summerland would have kept David safe and helped him so he wouldn't have ever been broken.

"I wish they had," Amy says. "But Summerland wasn't founded until after you came to live with us. And that time— I've learned about it from the mainframe. It was a terrible time to be a mutant. It was— Global genocide. Hiding you with us must have been the only way they had to keep you alive."

"It wasn't fair," Dvd says, angry through his tears. "They left us. They abandoned us, they— And all we've ever— Everyone's been afraid of us, always, because we're crazy, because we're powerful, because we're different and sick and— And it's not fair! We didn't ask to be what we are! We didn't ask to be tortured! But Divad always blames us like everyone else and it's not fair!"

"He took their side?" Amy asks.

"Divad always takes everyone else's side," Dvd grumbles. "Everything's always our fault. Well fuck him and fuck everyone." Then he feels bad. "But not you guys, I guess."

Kerry offers him her napkin. He takes it and wipes their face and blows their nose again. 

"Summerland wasn't around yet," Kerry says. "But me and Cary were. I wish your parents had left you with us. But we didn't know we were mutants yet. Everyone still thought Cary was crazy because he talked to me all the time but I wouldn't come out in front of other people. Cary— He protected me from a lot of bad things. That's why I have to protect him now, because I let all the bad things happen to him instead of me. But it wasn't my fault and it wasn't your fault. Bad things happened because— Bad people made them happen. And now— It's up to us to make good things happen because we're good people and that's what we do."

Dvd hasn't ever thought of himself as a good person. He's barely even thought of himself as a person. He was just— A stress response. The bad things only happened to David, not him, and it was his job to keep David safe. It still is.

"Yeah," Kerry agrees. "But you're a David, too. Maybe David wants to protect you sometimes, just like you want to be in charge sometimes. Maybe— You don't have to be anything except Dvd. And you can decide what that means, like David is deciding what being David means and I'm deciding what being Kerry means."

"Maybe," Dvd sniffs. All of that stuff sounds— He wasn't a person, just a stress response. And the bad things— The bad things were only supposed to happen to David. But bad things happened to all of them anyway. And David didn't make them, he became them. He became them.

He— 

"No," he whispers, denying it even though he can’t. And then the tears really start pouring out. He can't stop them, he can't— 

And then he's in Kerry's arms, like when they were mourning David, and Amy is there with her hand on their back, soothing him as the pain just— rips itself out of him. He fights it but he can't stop it, it's too strong. God, it hurts so much, _so much_. He doesn't want it, he doesn't, he _doesn't_. 

He wails and rips himself out of Kerry's arms and slams at the table, knocking everything on it to the ground. If they had their powers, he would blast this whole place apart and keep going and going until he made the whole world pay. But this stupid crown— He slams at the table again and again until Kerry and Amy pull him away and hold him as he screams and rages and then finally, finally gives out.

"Dvd," Amy soothes, "It's okay, shhh, it's okay."

Dvd struggles to breathe. Their chest is heaving and everything hurts and this isn't supposed to happen to him, it's not supposed to be his pain, it's David's, it's _David's_ , but David forgot. _David forgot_.

So it's Dvd's pain, now, just Dvd's. He doesn't want it but it has nowhere else to go.


	70. Day 10: New system, new notebook.

Dvd is bundled up on the sofa, sitting between Amy and Kerry and working his way through an entire box of tissues. He can't stop crying. He's tried but he can't. Their body is just— Too full of feelings and Dvd can't stop them now that they've found a way out.

It's not fair. This is supposed to be David's job, all this pain, all this crying and sadness. David's the one who's supposed to need comforting, not Dvd. But Dvd's in charge and he's alone in their body and it's awful, it's the worst, he doesn't want any of it. But Ptonomy said he needs to stay in their body and let the feelings happen. Ptonomy said it, and— Dvd isn't a coward like Divad. He's not going to dump their body and run away. It wouldn't be fair to make David clean up his mess, so Dvd has to clean it up himself.

So far cleaning it up mostly means crying and hugs. The hug part is— Not awful, even if it's hard to accept them, even from Kerry and Amy. If it was David hugging him, he could accept that easy, but— David can't hug him. David can't get in their body with him and share with him. David can only sit in the loveseat and watch him and look utterly lost about all of this, because David knows about but doesn't remember the things Dvd is so upset about, because the shit beetle ripped all those memories out of him and they're never coming back.

Another sob cracks from their throat.

'I’m upsetting him,' David thinks. 'Maybe I should—' He looks to Lenny beside him, but she can't see him. "Um, Lenny?"

"Nah," Lenny says. "You stay put. Right, Amy?"

"Absolutely," Amy says, looking over to David. "It's okay for Dvd to be upset and for you to be upset and— For me to be upset."

That really alarms David. He was so focused on Dvd being upset that he missed that Amy is upset, too. "Right," he says, though he's struggling. He's trying to accept that idea but it's hard for him, it's really hard. Upsetting Amy, upsetting Dvd, it makes him feel terrible. ‘All of this is my fault.’

"It's not your fault," Lenny says, firmly. "Remember what Ptonomy said? Shame is your coping mechanism, just like Dvd's anger. But underneath all that anger is a lot of sad. Do your check-in. What's under the shame?"

David does some breathing to steady himself. "Um." He concentrates. 'More shame. I'm just— A shame onion.'

Dvd sob-laughs at that. "Peel the layers and everyone cries."

"That's— Really awful," David says, but he's bleakly amused. "I'm sorry," he says, unable not to. "If I could just remember—"

"It wouldn't matter," Amy says, firmly. "Even if you remembered, David— Dvd was there with you. It happened to him, too. Both of you need to process what happened. So does Divad."

"Good luck with that," Dvd mutters and grabs another tissue. Ptonomy and Cary are trying to talk to Divad now, at the far end of the room. Divad might have to listen, but he's not answering back. If Divad could walk away from their system entirely he would, Dvd knows it.

"Divad's upset, too," Amy says. "We all have a lot to be upset about."

Dvd fights the urge to be angry at Amy. She should be upset for the terrible things she thought about David. Anger would feel so good right now, so much better than all this— Awful. But being angry at Amy will make it harder for David to accept him. Fixing their system is more important to Dvd than anything else. So he's going to not be angry even if it kills him.

Ptonomy comes over. "Divad isn't ready to talk, but he’s agreed to stay with Cary and Oliver."

"All Davids present and accounted for," Lenny says, with a lazy salute.

"It's a team effort," Ptonomy says. "And this team is doing great. Dvd, David, you're both doing great. I know it might not feel like it, but you are."

"It feels like shit," Dvd says.

David reluctantly nods. "Yeah," he says.

Ptonomy just smiles. "Suppressed emotions and suppressed memories are what make your system unstable. Engaging with those emotions, with the memories behind them, with how you feel now— That's exactly what you need to do to get better." He sobers. "But I know it's hard. You've both earned a rest, so you're done with session work for today. But the rules still apply. No time alone. If you need me I'm here, but talk to your friends first. Talk to each other. Build your new system together. Remember, you need to sleep together in your body tonight. Use the time for whatever you feel will help you do that."

"But— I could keep going," David offers. "We could— My possession trauma—"

"It's too big to do it all at once," Ptonomy reminds him. "If we do any more, it’ll be too much."

"You're not good at knowing your limits," Lenny says. "The cruise director knows best, remember? We'll do another round tomorrow."

David rubs his hands together, nervous. 'I’m not ready. Even thinking about it—'

"It'll be okay," Lenny assures him. "Let us worry about it. Trust us to make it okay for you."

David gives a longing look at their body, wishing he was inside it so he wasn't an untouchable mental projection. "Okay," he echoes. 

"Trust me, you don't want to be inside our body right now," Dvd tells him, and blows their nose.

"I'm used to crying," David says.

"Dvd needs to be in your system's body to process his emotions fully," Ptonomy says. "He needs to do that to heal. You can't suffer for him and you can't heal for him. He has to do those things himself."

David sighs. ‘If I could just remember—‘ He feels so ashamed about not remembering.

"We know you can't,” Ptonomy says. “But it’s okay. Just talk to each other, see what that does for both of you."

"Okay," David says. 

Ptonomy looks to Dvd, and Dvd nods. 

"Good," Ptonomy says. "I’m gonna take a break. I won't go far. If anyone needs me, you can reach me through the relay or the mainframe. I still need to have a session with Divad so he'll be ready for tonight. Let me know as soon as he's up for that."

"Aye-aye, cap'n," Lenny says, with another lazy salute.

Ptonomy goes to check in with Cary one more time, then leaves the lab. 

David and Dvd look at each other.

"I'm sorry about all of this," David says. "Making you and putting you through— All of this, and—"

"You didn't make us," Dvd says. "Remember? You're a David, too."

"But—"

"You're a David," Dvd insists. "Three of us makes one David. David made you just like he made me. So it's not your fault that we exist, get it?"

David rubs his forehead. "But I just— I just accepted that I'm David."

"There's three Davids," Lenny says, and starts ticking them off on her fingers. "First David is baby David. Second David is identity David. Third David is— Second David 2.0, new and improved with a fresh set of memories."

David struggles with that. "So I am David, but— Not— Baby David?"

"The earliest memories you have," Amy says. "The ones from before your brothers existed. They were— Inherited from the David that all three of you used to be."

"Because of Farouk?" David asks.

Dvd shrugs. "You got the short straw in the DID lottery. You got our original memories and our original name. That’s why you also got the shit beetle. Sorry, man."

David leans back in the loveseat. "So— I have— Three people's memories?"

"Probably four," Lenny says. "Every part of the cow, remember? So you're, like, all the Davids. The Davidest David. Maximum-strength David. All-purpose—"

"Okay, okay," David says, reluctantly amused and definitely exasperated. "Every part of the cow," he mutters. He looks to Dvd. "And you're— the Dvd part of Baby David?"

"Yeah," Dvd says. “And Divad’s his part.”

‘God, this is so weird,’ David thinks. “The short straw,” he echoes. “But— Shouldn’t Farouk know that? That I’m not— Original David?”

“As far as he’s concerned, DID is just a delusion,” Dvd says. “Same name, same memories, same person. Me and Divad are just your delusions.”

“You think Farouk was trying to make you whole, right?” Lenny says. “So giving you Divad and Dvd’s memories, that’s him glueing you back together. But you’re not just memories. You’re you.”

‘I’ve been three versions of me using four people’s memories, how can I know who I am?’ David thinks, slightly manic.

“Hey,” Lenny says, offended. “I’m not even sure how many Lennys I’ve been, but it doesn’t matter because I’m Lenny now. And, like, everyone changes all the time. Asking who you are, that’s— The ship of Theseus.”

“The what?” David asks.

“I read about it in the mainframe,” Lenny says. “So there’s this guy’s boat and it’s old so he fixes it. One plank at a time. So when all the planks are new, is it still the same boat?”

“Since when did you read philosophy?” Dvd asks, suspicious.

“Hey, I gotta understand all this crazy shit so I can help you,” Lenny replies.

“Dvd,” Amy asks, “Did you learn that from Divad’s philosophy class?”

“I listened sometimes,” Dvd defends. “When I wasn’t busy keeping us safe. The only danger in that class was if we snored when we fell asleep.”

“David, you don’t remember that?” Amy asks.

“I remember taking the class as Divad,” David says. “But I guess— I didn’t learn it as David.” ‘Because I was too broken to learn.’

“You weren’t really up for learning,” Dvd admits. “But Divad being happy—“ Dvd hates admitting it, hates that he has to try to patch things up with Divad so their system can heal. But he has to. “Divad being happy made you happy. And you did what you could to help both of us. You’re the only one who can read minds, remember? So you listened for both of us. For threats and, ah—“

“Cheating,” David realizes. “I helped us cheat.”

“Hey, we had a monster in our head and we had to take medication we didn’t need,” Dvd defends. “Cheating is how we survived.”

“Okay but what’s the answer?” Kerry asks. “The ship thing? Is it the same ship?”

“There is no answer,” Lenny says. “It’s a thought experiment.”

“If there’s no answer, what’s the point?” Kerry asks, annoyed.

“Cause we’re the ship,” Lenny tells her. “Everybody’s the ship, even if you don’t lose your whole body and get stuck in an android or have a psycho screwing with your head. Our cells and shit, all that changes, right?”

Kerry thinks about that. “Tissue replacement rate? Some cells are replaced every few days. But some parts of our body stay the same. Even if you live a really long time, you’ll still have half your original cardiomyocyte heart cells. Our brains aren’t supposed to change much, because neurogenesis remodels the hippocampus circuits and degrades established memories.”

When David finishes processing that, he doesn’t like it. “Healing my brain will make me forget the, what, five things I actually remember?”

“Divad knows what he’s doing,” Dvd says, reluctantly defending him. “The last thing he wants is for you to forget. Your memory’s a mess, but the new stuff is fine, right?”

“Better than fine,” David admits. ‘My old memories don’t feel as real as my new ones. Not just because most of them aren’t real. Farouk being in my head, all the fear and trauma and— God, he was _inside me my whole life_ —‘ He looks like he might be sick again. 

David’s possession trauma is the worst. It’s fucked David up bad. The shit beetle must be absolutely loving this because David— Baby David knew about the monster even before he became the three of them. David remembered all of that the most, so the shit beetle made him remember the least. If David had been able to hear them when he found out the truth, maybe they could have helped him. But finding out about his system afterward only made him worse.

Fuck the shit beetle, Dvd thinks. He’s never going to stop being angry at the shit beetle.

“He’s out and he’s not getting back in,” Dvd reminds him. “Our mind is our own, he doesn’t get to touch it anymore. We don’t belong to him, we belong to ourselves.”

“Sounds like my foundation,” David says. He starts to look a little less green.

“Hey, we’re supposed to make one, right?” Dvd says. “Divad said he wants it.”

“He did,” Lenny confirms. “Dvd can write it, he’s in charge. What do you think? Your notebook or a new one?”

David thinks about that. ‘I want Dvd to be part of my new self, but— I’m not just— A stress response. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to— Lose who I am, I barely know who I am, I’ve lost— I’m still just scraps, just— Whatever Farouk wanted me to be. But— If we’re all Davids, if I’m just— an identity with someone else’s memories, if—‘

Dvd’s not listening to that anymore. “Never mind him, I want a notebook,” he insists. “David’s notebook is for his stuff, I want one for our stuff. System stuff. New system, new notebook, right?”

David likes that idea. “Yeah,” he agrees, un-tensing. “New system, new notebook.”

“I got this,” Kerry says, and gets up and brings back another notebook and pen. She hands it to Dvd. “We’re all getting notebooks, this is great!”

Dvd is starting to understand why David likes Kerry so much. She’s just so— Herself. 

He opens the notebook. The pen feels awkward in their hand. Besides writing his name on a card, he hasn’t written anything in over a decade. But he did his fair share of covering for David before Divad took charge. He’s just rusty.

“Hold on, I just gotta—“ Dvd writes out the alphabet and some practice sentences. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Fuck the shit beetle. We are three David brothers. Fuck the shit beetle, he adds again because truly, deeply, fuck the shit beetle. 

He moves to tear out the page, but David reaches for it. “Wait, is— Is this something you do?”

This is exactly the kind of moment that's enough to send Dvd into a fury. There aren’t even words for how agonizing it is for David to not know these things, to have to _ask_. But Dvd won’t let himself be angry at David so all he can do is let the tears fall. “Yeah,” he says, and sniffs. “It’s, um— We had to cover for you, so— We practiced your handwriting. And it helped, with— When we covered. It was—”

There’s so much he can’t express about those times, so much it’s just impossible to tell. They shared so much, all the pain but also— The ways they helped each other, the little things they did to get through every long day. And some days were so long. But they got through them together. David took the pain and they covered for him, they helped him. That wasn’t just how they worked, it was how they survived.

But David took too much, and— Covering for David wasn’t good for David, it wasn’t good for their system. Pretending to be him, that made it easier for the shit beetle to keep torturing them because no one knew how bad it really was. Maybe— If the doctors knew David had DID, maybe they would have realized he didn’t have schizophrenia.

He’s really wants to send that thought to Divad to show him he’s not the only one who can be painfully logical. But he’s trying to not punish Divad anymore. It’s not easy but he’s trying. Just like David is trying to not feel like all of this is his fault. And Divad is trying, too, probably, even though he’s the worst at trying and is the worst, period.

Dvd wipes at their face. “Anyway. Yeah, it’s something we do.”

“Could you—“ David starts. “Would it be okay if you left it in? Or—“ He meets Dvd’s eyes. “Could I have it?”

Dvd’s noticed David collecting things. Not just ideas. He has their rocket lamp and he squirrelled away the family photo he took out of Amy’s album and Cary's scans and the cards with their names. And now he wants this. It’s nothing to Dvd, he’s done it countless times over the years. But it means something to David.

“Sure,” Dvd says, and carefully pulls the sheet from the notebook. He puts it on the table in front of David, and David stares at it and— Doesn’t think anything, but feels a hell of a lot.

“Um,” David says. “You can— I have a few things— By the lamp.” He gestures to the small table by his bed. 

Their bed, Dvd thinks. Because they’re going to sleep in it together tonight.

“Let’s do that foundation first,” Lenny says. 

"Yeah," Dvd says. His handwriting's still clumsy, but he's got this. "System foundation," he says and writes. "You gave us the first piece, David. We have to stay alive for each other."

David finally tears his eyes away from the sheet. He visibly collects himself. "Yeah, that's— A good place to start."

"Just put down your ideas for now," Amy suggests. "You can go over it with Divad when he's feeling better."

Dvd rolls his eyes, because Divad's been a judgemental jerk for decades, Dvd doesn't see him stopping now. But whatever. They need a foundation and Dvd is making it happen.

"Our mind is our own," Dvd says and writes. "We belong to ourselves. Yeah?"

"Yeah," David echoes. 

"Ptonomy said we should add something from yours," Dvd continues. "We've lost things we'll never get back. But we're here and we're not alone. That okay?"

"I guess you guys need it too?" David asks, sadly. 

"We need it even more than you," Dvd says, plainly. He writes it in. David not remembering is agonizing torture for all of them in different ways. "But this foundation is for all of us, not just me and Divad. We're gonna share it. It's ours, like our new system is ours and our body is ours." Dvd doesn't care what horrors the shit beetle is planning for them. They have David and their body back and Dvd is never letting either of them get taken away ever again. 

"We share everything," David says, like he's trying out the words. "Maybe— That should be in our foundation, too. And— I want us to have healthy multiplicity."

Dvd likes the first better than the second, but— "Okay, yeah," he says, and adds them both. "We're all Davids, right?"

"Add that, too," David says, engaging more now. "We're all Davids."

"This is gonna be a big foundation," Dvd jokes. 

"It is for three people," David says. "Oh, add that. We're all Davids and we're all people. And we're brothers. And we're all going to get better."

Dvd adds all that and looks over what they got. A lot of their system foundation comes from Divad and Dvd's own words. Between that and the writing practice— Most of the things and ideas that David has collected so far have been from people outside of their system, but this really is theirs. And as horrible as it feels to not have David remember— 

David really wants them to be part of his new self, his new life. They didn't have a choice about existing together, they shouldn't need to choose, but— David is choosing them.

Dvd's never been chosen by anyone before.

The tears are back, but— Their face is smiling. He's— Happy? He remembers everything but he can't remember ever just feeling happy.

"Dvd?" David says, concerned. 

And now David is worried for him. It's ridiculous, but that makes Dvd— Even happier.

"Hold on, I just gotta—" Dvd says, and he lays their body back before stepping out of it. He goes over to David and hugs him, holds him tight, because he'll go back in, he'll let all the awful feelings happen, but he's not going to see David caring about him and _not_ hug him.

David tenses in surprise, and then— He holds Dvd back. Not hesitant or trying too hard to help, but because they both need it.

'My brother,' David thinks, trying to accept the idea, and it's not so hard for him this time. Dvd didn't expect his writing practice to make such a difference, but somehow that's what did it. 

The rocket lamp, the family photo, the brain scans, the name cards, Dvd's writing practice— They’re evidence. Little things that prove that they exist, that he’s David, that Dvd and Divad are his brothers. 

David can't remember how their system worked, how they survived together, it's all just— Fear. To David, their whole past is just blank fear and false memories. There's nothing for him to hold on to. Dvd doesn't want to tell him the bad things, but he can tell him— The little things. And he needs to do more than just tell. Without memories they're only stories. He needs to show him, give him proof, because proof makes the stories real. 

Dvd gives David one last squeeze before letting him go and stepping back into their body. David's confused; he doesn't understand what just happened because he can't. And it's okay that he can't.

It hurts to give up the hope that David will remember. That hope kept Dvd going for so long. David always needed him and Dvd didn't need anything because he always had David. But the memories are gone. And now— David is choosing what he wants and he wants _Dvd_. David _wants_ him and Dvd is the one who needs David. Needing David hurts, but being wanted makes Dvd happier than he ever thought he could be. 

That's not how their system worked, but that's how it's working now.


	71. Day 10: She doesn't trust herself to have him.

Syd doesn't go to pet puppies in the park, but she doesn't return to Division 3. She takes a few hours to walk the city and sober up, to clear her head, to figure out what she's going to do. She has lunch in a cafe and is-- Alone. 

She's alone.

There was a time when alone was all she wanted to be. She didn't need anyone, and why would she? Life is war and love makes her weak.

She's not supposed to believe that anymore. She took it out of her foundation. But she still believes it. Loving David made her weak. Loving David made her a victim: of Farouk, of David, of herself, future and present. She can't stop being a victim because she's trapped in this nightmare with everyone else. Syd knows that Clark is right. Farouk will never let her walk away. 

It should be easy to stop loving someone. But she hated her mother and all that hate couldn't save her from needing her mother's love. 

The year he was gone-- David doesn't remember that year, but she does. She lived every single long day of that year, waiting for him, worrying for him, wondering if it was something she did, if she drove him away, if he was dead, if he escaped the orb and stayed away because he just didn't want her anymore, because why would he want her? Why would anyone want someone like her?

She can't forgive David for a whole list of crimes. Not just violating her mind and her body, but lying to her about what he is and what he did and what he knew, leaving her again and again. 

He didn't choose to leave her, he was taken. She knows that. She knows those aren't his crimes. He was just a pawn caught between her own future self and Farouk, both of them manipulating him for their own dark ends. She knows that she has every reason to forgive him for everything. 

But she's angry anyway. She wants to walk away, but far more than that, she wants to punish him so he'll never leave her again. She wants to make him go back to how he was, sick and powerless and human. It was easy for her to love someone like that, in a place like Clockworks, because she knew she was only there as a visitor and David was never going to leave.

If he hadn't kissed her--

She could have walked away from Clockworks and left David there and that would have been the cruelest punishment of all. Without that kiss, David wouldn't have been brought to Summerland and Farouk would have kept on eating him alive. He would have drained David and tortured him until he found a way to take David over completely and then Farouk would have become the god he desperately wants to be. 

And then the world really would have ended. But she wouldn't be caught at the heart of it. 

And that's really what this is about — her choice — because no matter what David never had a choice. He didn't choose to be a host, he didn't chose to be tortured, he didn't choose to be changed, he didn't choose to forget. Farouk chose everything for him. Farouk made the David she loved, and that-- It disgusts her. She's disgusted at herself for loving an illusion, a monster's trick. The David she loved wasn't real, so what is he?

He's a world killer. A sick little boy with too much power. An extremely powerful mutant who could potentially destroy the world if he wanted to, or if she hurt his feelings real bad.

Farouk's words, Clark's words. Clark told her to stop trusting her enemies more than her friends. But how can she? She doesn't have friends. 

She has nothing and no one. She's not capable of love and she doesn't deserve it. She's a ghost living in a haunted house. All she's ever had is herself and that's why the only thing that's ever mattered is her own survival. All the work she did for Division 3, helping mutants? It isn't just that she's a hypocrite for being afraid of David. It's that all that work was Melanie's dream, not hers. And now that Melanie is gone, the dream is over. Syd's illusions about herself are over. She should never have tried to be more than she is.

All of that feels true. All of it makes perfect sense. And yet--

And yet.

She's still going back.

Not because of Farouk, but because she still loves David.

It's ridiculous that she can feel all these things at once for one person. Love and fear and frustration and anger and forgiveness and grief and disgust and longing and regret and confusion and-- And that's the thing. That's the thing, because even without his powers David's always made her feel so much. She tried to deny it. Even in Clockworks, she tried not to feel the things he made her feel. 

She was afraid of him even when she thought he was helpless. 

She told herself it was safe to love him because he was sick. She'd leave him and those feelings behind when she left Clockworks. But it wasn’t safe. Once she loved him she couldn’t bear to leave him behind. She needed him to get better so he could leave with her. She needed to hold on to him even though they couldn't touch.

She never wanted to be untouchable. She wanted to kiss him for real, not in illusions of shadows and reflections. And that's why she didn't stop him. That's why she let it happen even though she knew it was a mistake. And it was such a mistake. Loving David was such an enormous mistake.

She still can’t stop loving him. She still can’t stand the thought of leaving him behind. She doesn't want to make peace with him and walk away, she wants his adoration and his passion back. She wants to love him as he is and she wants him to keep loving her, because he's the only one who's ever truly loved her. He's the only one who's ever touched her, skin to skin, and-- It was still an illusion but it felt so real. 

When he came to her that night, strange and urgent-- She could have sent him away. She could have said no, and even in that fevered state he would have done what she told him, because _he can't refuse her and he never could_.

They had sex that night because she wanted him to touch her, she wanted what his powers gave them. She wanted that boy with too much power bent to her command, to her pleasure, to her desires. She loved that he was dangerous, she loved that he would do anything for her, including the fact that he could potentially destroy the world _if she wanted him to_.

And that's--

That's the real reason she keeps punishing him and pushing him away. 

She already knows what she's capable of without him. What's she capable of with him? 

David’s so powerful and so vulnerable. She doesn't trust herself to have him.

All the people that David’s ever loved-- He still loves them no matter how much they’ve hurt him. He's can't stop loving them any more than she can stop loving him or her mother. It doesn't matter if she deserves love, if she feels capable of giving it. David loves her anyway. There's nothing sensible about David or his love. That's why she fell in love with him in the first place, because he saw how untouchable she was and he loved her anyway.

David's love is as powerful as everything else about him, but it's not a power he uses, it's a power he gives. David gave Syd so much love she has power over him that no one else does, whether she wants it or not. 

And she wants it. She's terrified of that love and everything that comes with it, but she wants it. And maybe she's the last person who should have it but it isn't up to her, any more than it's up to any mutant if they should have the powers they were gifted by genetics or luck or divine whim. That's what Melanie always said. What matters is what they do with it. What matters is if they have the tools and support to handle those gifts responsibly. And even if Melanie's gone-- She was as close to a friend as Syd's ever had. So Syd should trust what she left behind.

Life is war and Syd has to survive. But she can accept help. She accepted Melanie's help with her powers and her haphephobia, and now what she needs is help with David. She’s going to accept the gift of his love and accept the tools and support she needs to handle it responsibly. She’s going to learn to be responsible with David and everything that comes with him. 

She has a lot of ideas in her foundation but she doesn’t have to keep them. Ptonomy told her that and he's trying to be her friend, so she should trust him. If she needs to change to survive, then that’s what she’ll do. She doesn’t want to be a victim anymore, including a victim of herself. She doesn’t want to be her own worst enemy or the kind of monster that would let innocent people die out of pure spite.

So what does she want her foundation to be?

She’ll keep what works, but her foundation is full of other people’s poison. David loves her. That's an undeniable fact. She has to accept it. Everything that works against that truth has to go or she’ll never survive. 

So her new foundation is: Life is war and she has to survive. She can accept help. And— She is loved. 

Even if it’s just one person, one single palm tree on her lonely island, even if she doesn’t deserve it and it makes her weak and it’s messy and painful and dangerous and a mistake— _She is loved._

The untouchable Sydney Barrett is loved. 

So she’s going back. And she’s going to accept the help she needs.

§

Syd's not sure what to expect when she gets back. She stops by her room, freshens up and braces herself, then heads to the lab. But no one's there. There's a rumpled blanket on the sofa and a wastebasket full of used tissues so she knows David had another rough morning, but that's normal by now.

She finds them all in the garden and she stops. Everyone's together: David, Amy, Lenny, Cary, Kerry, Oliver; everyone but Ptonomy. And they're all relaxed. Whatever breakdown David had earlier, it seems to be over now. Usually by this point in the day David is a wreck, but he's sitting with Lenny and Kerry and Amy and he's good, he's fine. His eyes are swollen but he's relaxed, he's talking, he's--

Not David. That's not David. She listens and she realizes: that's Dvd. And there's a space between Dvd and Lenny, enough space for-- David. And Divad must be up here somewhere, too. She looks and sees a space between Cary and Oliver, a space that Cary is talking to. But no one's relaying back to Cary or Kerry.

No one has to. Because they have the relay. 

Syd takes a step back, sucker-punched, and Oliver looks over at her. He says something to Cary and Cary turns, and then everyone else turns.

Syd thought she was ready. But she’s not. 

She's down the stairs before anyone can stand up to follow her. She pushes through the door and jabs at the elevator button, and thank god the elevator is already on the way up. She jabs the button again, needing to be gone before anyone can catch up to her, and the door opens and-- It's Ptonomy.

"Syd," Ptonomy says, with mild surprise that's probably feigned. "I've been looking for you." He doesn't get out of the elevator, but steps aside and gestures for her to come in. She presses the floor for the lab and only breathes out when the doors close and the elevator goes down.

"It's okay," Ptonomy says, calmly. "They're staying up there. You were gone a long time, we were starting to worry."

"I had to think," Syd says, wrapping her arms around herself, standing as far away from Ptonomy as she can. She was ready to do the work, she was, but she wasn't ready for that.

Ptonomy doesn't press her. It's blindingly obvious that she's not ready to talk.

When they get back to the lab, Ptonomy gives her time to settle. Syd doesn't know where to sit because everything reminds her of David. Finally she sits on her cot. It's next to David's bed, but it's the one thing in this lab that's hers alone.

Ptonomy sits on Kerry's cot. "I'm sorry, I wanted to warn you before you walked into that."

"When did they--" Syd asks, but doesn't finish. Oliver saw her, heard her thoughts. Oliver tells Ptonomy when something worries him. No doubt her reaction worried him.

"Just after you left this morning," Ptonomy says. "I wanted to wait until you were ready, but-- Dvd and Divad needed to be heard. And it was the right decision because today would have been a lot harder without Cary and Kerry."

"And me?" Syd asks, hating how vulnerable she sounds.

"That's up to the Davids," Ptonomy says. "And it's up to you. You need to talk to them and all of you need to agree."

Syd scoffs. 

"I know," Ptonomy allows. "None of the Davids are ready to share with you right now. But remember what I said about trust being a two-way street. If you open up to them, they'll open up to you. So how about you practice by opening up to me?"

Syd sighs. It felt so easy, making the decision to accept help, but actually accepting help isn't easy at all. How does David do it? How does he get himself through his own resistance and accept help even when it feels impossible?

Mantras. He uses mantras. He used them in Clockworks and he's using them now.

"I need a mantra," Syd decides. "I did a lot of thinking and-- I ready to accept help. But-- It's hard."

"And you think a mantra will help you, like it helps David?" Ptonomy asks.

Syd nods.

"Let's give it a try," Ptonomy says, pleased. "David's mantras are about acceptance. Acceptance of himself and of the things that will help him change. What do you need to accept, and what will help you change?"

"I changed my foundation," Syd says, because she feels like that needs to come first. "I realized-- It doesn't matter if I deserve love. David loves me." It feels good to say it out loud. "And I want to be with him. So I can't-- I took out the ideas that were making me hurt him."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, taking that in. "So what's your foundation now?"

Syd takes a deep breath, lets it out. "Life is war and I have to survive. I can accept help. I am loved."

Ptonomy considers that. "So-- 'Pain makes us strong. I'm a victim. I'm not capable of love and I don't deserve it.' Those were making you hurt David?"

"And 'Love makes me weak,'" Syd adds. "You were right. My mother put those ideas into me and they're not mine. I don't want them. I don't want to be what she was. I don't want to give those ideas to David. I don't want to hurt him. And--" This is harder. "I realized-- I'm afraid of-- Having David. His power, his vulnerability-- I don't know how to-- Be responsible for-- What he gives me. That's why-- I won't forgive him. Because--" 

"If you forgive him, if you accept his love, that makes you responsible for him," Ptonomy finishes for her.

"I have so much power over him," Syd says. "He did things for me that-- He shouldn't ever have done, but he did them for me. Because he loves me and trusts me more than himself. More than-- He trusted me so much he went back to the monster who ruined his life because I told him to. And I was angry at him when he stopped, even after Amy, because-- I wanted him to obey me instead of protecting himself from an abusive monster." Farouk is such a vile monster. And Syd trusted the monster more than she trusted David. She trusted her enemies more than her friends and they all paid for it.

"That's a lot of power," Ptonomy agrees.

"And he can't take it back," Syd says, regretful and glad at the same time. "He can't stop loving me. He can't stop loving-- Anyone he's ever loved."

"He can't," Ptonomy agrees. "It's hard for anyone to do that. Love, real love, is incredibly powerful. And David is love. Love is what keeps him alive and connected to the world despite everything he's suffered."

"Yes," Syd says, and gathers herself again. "I know he's trying to be-- To make decisions for himself. To have boundaries. But-- Loving him means accepting him as he is. That's what you said. So if I'm with him, if I'm part of his life-- I have to be careful with him."

"We all do," Ptonomy agrees. "We're all trying to be a lot more careful with David and each other. You're not facing this alone, Syd."

"I know," Syd says. "This morning-- Clark. I know you sent him. He said-- I have to stop trusting my enemies more than my friends. And that's--" She gives a dry laugh. "He's good at that, figuring people out and knowing their vulnerabilities. You and Clark and Farouk, you're all really good at that. So here I am." She looks at him, hating how vulnerable she feels but not letting herself hide it. "I'm ready to do the work."

"You are," Ptonomy agrees. "So let's do the work. You have your new foundation and it's a good start. Remember, you can keep changing it. Take out what hurts you and put in what helps."

Syd nods. 

"Grab your notebook and write it down," Ptonomy says, gesturing to the notebook tucked under Syd's cot.

Syd takes it out and flips to a new page. She writes her foundation. Life is war and she has to survive. She can accept help. She is loved. 

"And now your mantra," Ptonomy says. "Let's brainstorm. Think about acceptance and change. What are your goals?"

Syd concentrates. "To accept David. To be-- Responsible with him. To trust my friends. To-- Have friends. To not be-- Alone. I don't want to be alone."

"You want love," Ptonomy says. "You have David's love in your foundation because that's a truth for you. But him loving you is only half the story. You want to be able to love him back. To love other people, to open up to them and trust them."

Syd nods.

"Opening up and trusting are big challenges for you," Ptonomy says. "So I think those are a good place to start. What words would help you open up and trust?"

"I can't just tell myself to open up and trust?" Syd asks.

"You could," Ptonomy allows. "But think about David's mantra. It's not a command, it's a reassurance. It helps him feel safe enough to keep trying."

"Safe," Syd mocks, surprised at her own bitterness. But she doesn't feel safe. She's never felt safe, not deep down where it counts. Even with David, she never felt safe enough to open up and trust. It was always him opening up to her, trusting her. And there's nothing safe about their situation now.

"Your mantra can't keep you safe," Ptonomy admits. "But it can help you protect yourself the right way. It's normal to guard yourself when you don't feel safe. But friendship and love are the bonds that will give you real safety. Trusting each other means we've got each other's backs. That's how people have survived-- Forever. Before mutants, before humans, when we were just a bunch of apes wandering around Africa. We didn't have claws or armor or fangs. One of us against a lion? No contest. But a bunch of us against a lion, with sticks and rocks? That lion better run."

"And Farouk's the lion in this metaphor?" Syd asks, dryly amused.

"There's plenty of lions out there," Ptonomy says. "Life's war, right? No one wins a war alone. You need an army. So join up. You can help keep us safe, and we'll all return the favor."

Ptonomy and his metaphors. But Syd's never thought of it that way, of other people as-- Fellow soldiers. She and her mom were the lions picking off prey from the herd. If they met another lion, they didn't bring it into their pride, they punished it for encroaching on their territory. But that left them vulnerable. And when their pride was down to one, Syd couldn't hold their territory alone. She was the one who was punished.

"Join up," Syd echoes. Something about that works for her. The idea of-- Group survival. Safety in numbers. She looks at her foundation again. "Maybe--" she says, and writes: 'I can accept help. Life is war and _we_ have to survive. I am loved.'

"Very good," Ptonomy says, impressed. "And you're putting help first. That's excellent." He gives her a considering look. "You know, you don't have to figure it all out yourself. David's mantra started with Cary and he's been a magpie for all of his foundation and mantra work. I helped you with the idea of accepting help. So let's get you accepting help from your friends with your mantra. Let's go up there and tell them that you're trying to open up and trust with them. How does that sound?"

It sounds-- Painful and embarrassing. Like she's walking up to the front of the class so she can be humiliated. But this isn't a school full of taunting classmates. This is-- A safe environment. It's designed to be therapeutic and supportive for David, full of accepting people who aren't afraid to give him the love he needs. And it's meant to be therapeutic and supportive for everyone else in it, too. A place for complicated people to get better.

It's Oliver and Melanie's dream. It's Summerland at the heart of Division 3. Melanie might be gone, Oliver might have forgotten, but-- Ptonomy, Cary, Kerry. They kept the dream alive.

She's glad. It's a good dream.

"Okay," Syd agrees. "Let's go up."


	72. Day 10: A human touch, sustained and painless.

When Syd was a teenager, her mom dragged her to an AA meeting. Her mom had searched her room while Syd was at school and found the bottles she'd hidden in the drawer under her tampons and sports bras. Syd didn't see the problem. Her mom drank all the time, the kids at school drank all the time. Who cared if she was underage? Her mom's friends had been sneaking her alcohol at their salons since before she needed tampons and sports bras.

It's not like Syd was an alcoholic. Her mom was the alcoholic, but she was classy about it and wrote even better drunk than she did sober, so everyone thought it was great. Syd was just trying to fit in for once, the only way she could. She was trying to be normal.

Normal got her dragged to some shitty church in a shitty part of town, because god forbid they bumped into anyone who knew them. God forbid the Untouchable Barretts actually let themselves be human beings for one single solitary second.

Her mom was such a coward. For all her bluster, she didn't make Syd get up and talk. Looking back, she thinks her mom went to that meeting for herself more than for Syd. She knew she needed help but she couldn't let herself ask for it or accept it. She used Syd as the excuse to go, and then faced with her own life reflected back at her, she shut down. They left the meeting without a word to anyone or each other and never spoke of it again.

A few months later, Mom got her cancer diagnosis. And then drinking was the least of their problems. 

But that night stayed with Syd. The people standing up in turn, telling their stories, pouring out their hearts to strangers. Some of them even cried. It was so alien to everything Syd knew. Her life was two hells: the hell of school, where she didn't belong and everyone made sure she knew it, and the hell of home. Home was two different hells depending on if there was a salon or not. If there was a salon, it was the hell too much noise: an apartment full of fake people fake smiling at each other while they bragged about their fakeness and drank too much. If there wasn't a salon, it was the hell of too much silence. She and her mom didn't talk much, especially by the end. They would sit together and read or write. Syd would read the books her mom's friends talked about at the salons, or she would do her homework, or sometimes she would draw. And when her mom finished her essays, she would read them aloud and Syd would critique them. 

That AA meeting was one of the only moments of Syd's life where she saw genuine vulnerability. And then she was forced into Clockworks, and on her first day there she met someone who was the living embodiment of genuine vulnerability.

Right now, David's body is not occupied by the living embodiment of genuine vulnerability. She's not sure if Dvd has ever been vulnerable for a single day of his life. They have a lot in common that way, but that isn't something Syd feels especially glad about right now.

She came back for David, not Dvd. But David is a package deal, a mandatory buy one get two free. And-- They're the parts of David that were always missing: his anger and his rationality. Their presence doesn't negate David; they make sense of him, they make him whole. And a whole David is what she needs. A stool with all three legs, stable and able to take the weight.

It's still deeply disconcerting to see Dvd glaring at her with David's body, his arms crossed, his whole body tense with defensive suspicion. It would help if she could hear David through the relay like everyone else, but she has to earn that. So here she is, trying to earn it by opening up in front of-- Not strangers, but people she's done everything she can to keep at a safe distance for over a year.

'Hi, my name is Syd and I'm emotionally stunted,' she wants to say. But that feels-- Disrespectful. She looks to Ptonomy for help, and he nods in assent.

"Syd's been doing a lot of work on herself," Ptonomy says. "Hard work. She's made progress with her foundation, but she needs some help with her mantra." He looks back to Syd, prompting her along. 

“So what’s your foundation?” Dvd asks, before Syd can speak. “I wanna hear it.”

“Dvd,” Amy says, trying to intervene. 

“No, he’s right,” Syd says. “I’m not very good at— Sharing. But you should know my foundation.” 

David might be invisible and inaudible to her, but he’s sitting next to Dvd. She knows his foundation. It’s only fair that he know hers. She takes a moment to brace herself. It’s one thing to talk about this in therapy. She can just about manage that. This is— New heights of terrifying vulnerability. 

“My foundation,” Syd says, slowly to delay the inevitable. “My foundation is— I can accept help. Life is war and we have to survive. And I am— Loved.” She falters on the last word, her voice unsteady. She has a horrible certainty that David doesn’t love her anymore, that it was arrogant of her to make such a huge assumption and put it in her foundation, for god’s sake she’s such an idiot. She wants to run away and hide. 

Dvd is not impressed.

“Thank you for sharing that with us,” Amy says, warmly.

“Yes,” Cary adds. “That’s a very personal thing. I—”

Everyone looks at the space between Lenny and Dvd. Syd waits and is actually dying, she is dying right now, David hates her and she’s the one who should throw herself off the roof.

She doesn’t show any of that. She doesn’t even twitch. 

“David says he likes your foundation,” Lenny relays. 

Syd is absolutely sure that David said more than that, and probably thought more on top of that. But that’s what she’s getting, apparently. Her days of being the only person David could talk to are absolutely over. Which is a good thing, she knows it’s a good thing. But it still feels like— An unspeakable loss. 

Being the only person David could trust was— It meant a lot to her, more than a lot. She feels like such an idiot for pushing him away. Why did she do that? Why?

She knows why. It still feels— She feels so small and petty in the face of— Everything David is going through. She doesn’t deserve his love. She’s the last person he should want and he must have realized that because he’s trusting everyone but her with the relay. 

Her foundation is such a joke. She took out all those things but she can’t stop believing them. 

She needs a drink. God, she really has turned into her mom. 

“Syd,” Ptonomy says, concerned. “How about you ask for help with your mantra?”

Her mantra. Yeah, she could use a mantra right now. “Yeah. Um. So I’m trying— Opening up and— Trusting— I’m bad at it. Obviously. But I’m trying, so— I need a mantra to— Help me try.” She says the last part softly, looking at the empty space where David is. She wishes she could see him. She might not be the only person he loves, if he loves her anymore at all, but— He’s the only person she loves. For two years, he’s been the only person who mattered to her.

And that’s the problem. Or one of the problems. David can’t be her everything. He can’t even be his own everything. She can’t be his, but— She never was. For as long as Syd has known him, he’s had Lenny and Amy and Divad and Dvd. And don’t get her started on Farouk. David’s never been alone the way Syd’s been alone.

David loved her. Maybe he still does. But he’s always had too much love for just the two of them. Syd barely even has enough love for— How could she ever make him happy? How could she ever make anyone happy? 

She moves to stand, but Ptonomy puts a hand on her arm, stopping her. It shocks her, a casual touch to bare skin without the discomfort she expects from a lifetime of discomfort. But Ptonomy’s body is an android. There's no anxious needles under her skin. Her powers don’t work on— A mainframe-embodied soul. 

Ptonomy doesn’t take away his hand, and she stares at it. Ptonomy, Lenny, and Amy— Syd realizes with a start that they can all touch her. It’s not skin-to-skin, not truly, but— It’s almost as good an illusion as any of David’s.

They can touch her.

She’s reeling from that so much that she has to force herself to pay attention to what Ptonomy is saying.

“—her mantra,” Ptonomy says to Cary. “Since you were the one who gave David his start.”

“Trust and openness,” Cary says, thoughtful. “I must admit I’ve struggled with that myself. Not with Kerry, of course, but— With you and David both. Your entrance into our lives was— Quite the whirlwind. Oliver, Farouk, Division 3. But that’s really no excuse. Syd, I must apologize for not being more supportive after David was taken. You suffered a terrible loss and— I let Melanie shoulder that burden. But she’d suffered a terrible loss herself. Kerry, Ptonomy, and myself, we should have recognized that and reached out to you, instead of expecting you to come to us.”

Syd stares at Cary, completely at a loss. 

“Yeah,” Kerry says, regretful. “I mean, that wasn’t really my thing, but— If I lost Cary like that, I wouldn’t be— Arguing with jerks who think all mutants should die. But you did and you’re pretty good at it.”

“You are,” Cary agrees, and he seems— Proud? “Melanie often spoke with me about how impressed she was with you. And she mentioned how well you were doing with your therapy— In general terms, of course.”

“I’m sorry you felt alone, Syd,” Amy says, sympathetic. “You helped me so much while David was gone. You let me talk your ear off about him. But I should have insisted you tell me how you were really doing. Because— When we lost him, you were closer to David than I was. You were there with him after I gave up. He’s my brother, but the two of you loved each other so much. And I know you didn’t want to grieve, you couldn’t let yourself— You were so strong, to keep searching for him, to keep fighting even when everyone else— You were the one who kept our hope alive.”

Kerry suddenly laughs into her hand.

Dvd clears his throat. “David wants me to point out that he’s not dead.” He listens, sighs, annoyed. “But he’s glad you didn’t give up on him. And he’s mad that everyone else did.”

“Hey, no sharing thoughts,” Lenny chides. “We don’t share your thoughts, don’t share David’s without permission.”

“Yeah,” Kerry says, firmly. “No abusing the relay.”

Dvd huffs. “I’m not using the relay.”

“Abusing the relay?” Syd asks. She feels like she missed something. She knows she did. 

“We hear the Davids’ thoughts with the relay,” Kerry explains. “But just because they think something, that doesn’t mean they want to say it. We try to only respond to the things they say aloud and we try not to take advantage. The hardest part of the relay is not answering back to everything.”

“It is,” Cary agrees, fondly. “But I think we’re all handling it very well.”

Kerry glows at Cary’s praise, and Cary— He looks so happy that he’s made her happy. They’re such an incongruous pair, it’s easy to forget that they’re effectively twins, like how the Davids are effectively triplets. 

"I'm not using the relay," Dvd says again. "So your rules don't apply to me." 

Dvd listens while David say something. Dvd looks annoyed, then guilty. He looks at Syd, then back at the empty space.

"They're not your secrets, they're ours," Dvd grumbles. He listens some more, then throws up his hands. "Fine." He turns to Syd. "Me and Divad shouldn't have told you David's secrets before." He looks over at the space between Cary and Oliver, but if Divad says anything it's not relayed.

It was frustrating before, hearing only a fraction of David's conversations with Dvd and Divad. It's even more frustrating now because David is the one she wants to hear. When they saw her before, there must have been a conversation about David going back into his body to talk to her, but Dvd stayed put. 

They're a package deal. Dvd isn't going anywhere. If she wants to be with David, she has to be with Dvd. She has to be with-- All of the people in David's life. 

In her life.

If David had never come back, if Farouk had left them alone-- What would she have done? Would she have turned into Melanie, waiting alone for decades? She wants to think that she would have accepted her situation and engaged more with Melanie and Amy, with Ptonomy, Cary, and Kerry, but she had a year to do that and she didn't. She doesn't know how to let people in. That's-- The whole point of this exercise. This-- Compassion therapy.

They're giving her compassion therapy. Or-- Are they? Maybe this is just-- Friendship. What's the difference?

Ptonomy's hand is still on her arm. Even though it's artificial, it's still-- A human touch, sustained and painless. She thought David was the only person who could give her that. But here she is, being touched on bare skin by an aesthetically accurate android with a human soul.

The pain around her heart eases its grip.

"No one can touch me," Syd says, the words finding their way out of her. "It's really--" She stops, tries to-- "When people get close-- It's not just the-- Physical discomfort. It's--" She swallows. "Do you know what it feels like to have people flinch away from you? To always be-- And I have to be the one to say no, I have to reject everyone. And that's-- It's my fault. I'm hurting them. I hurt my mom, I hurt David--" Her throat is tight. Ptonomy is still touching her arm.

"Syd," Cary says, gently. "Your powers aren't your fault."

"I know," Syd says. She talked about this with Melanie when they first brought her to Summerland. But talking to Melanie wasn't enough. She thought-- As long as she had David, it didn't matter. And then she lost him. And when she got him back-- She was so angry with him because he gave her what she needed and then took it away.

She wants to tell David that. But if she does, it's going to hurt him. Even if she tells Dvd instead, David is right there beside him. She doesn't know if he's angry or happy or upset. She doesn't know what he's feeling. He's-- 

He's her. 

He's present but-- Refusing to give anything away. Unable to express with his body, with his eyes. His eyes always show so much. What do her eyes show? How did David fall in love with someone who doesn't show anything?

"My mom blamed me," she says, involuntarily. "She didn't say it, but-- I saw it in her eyes every day. Not being able to touch her own daughter, even as a baby. She was always talking about being a survivor, but you know what she was surviving? Me."

She's never admitted that to anyone, not even Melanie. She tried to show David, but-- He didn't understand. No matter how many times she showed him, he didn't understand. But she didn't help him understand, she wouldn't give him the words he needed. She wanted him to simply know, like her mom knew.

He's a mind reader. He should have known. But he didn't trust what he heard and she told him not to listen. She didn't want him to trespass on her mind, but she wouldn't tell him anything either. He must have felt-- Like she felt with her mom. Desperate to please, but constantly punished.

She never wanted to become her mom, but she became her anyway. It's her mom's poison in her old foundation, her mom's pain and anger, her abuse. It was abuse. 

"Shit," she mutters, blinking away tears. "I'm sorry, I--"

"Syd," Amy says, concerned. "Is it okay if-- I hug you?"

Syd looks at Amy. Ptonomy's hand moves from her arm to her back, lightly urging her on.

"It's safe," Ptonomy says. "She can't hurt you and you can't hurt her."

It's safe. Amy's-- Safe. It's hard for her to process that, but--

Syd stands up, and Amy is there, and--

She's done so much work on her haphephobia. She can touch Matilda or holds hands with someone for hours. But touch is still something she has to endure. She's learned how to endure it, to tolerate it for the sake of others, for David, but it's still-- Anxious needles under her skin.

She's touching Amy and there's no needles. Amy's holding her against her body, her arms wrapped tight around her, and nothing is happening.

No, something is happening. She feels-- 

Calmed. Safe and nurtured and-- Accepted. Amy could say kind things to Syd all day, but words are-- Syd doesn't trust words. Her mom was so good with words. Her mom said she loved her but Syd never felt her love. She felt David's love when he touched her, but this is so much stronger because-- It’s her body feeling it, not just her mind. It's her actual body being held and touched without pain.

Eventually she feels like it's okay to let Amy go. She steps back, trying to recover and gather herself back together. She sees Dvd looking at her with-- Understanding. It confuses her at first, but-- Then she gets it. She's not the only one who's been-- Imprisoned in their own body, who finds themself-- Undone by kindness.

She sits down, feeling utterly overwhelmed. Ptonomy puts his hand back on her arm and she lets it happen. It's not as intense as the hug. It's-- Steadying. A physical connection. Like holding hands.

She gets it now. She understands why David needs that so much, why-- Everyone does. She read about it, she studied it, she forced herself to go through the motions. But her powers were always in the way. 

She thinks about the times she went into other people's bodies, into Matilda's body. David went into her body for two hours and couldn't shake her off for days, weeks. But she never felt like she was them, she never felt fully connected to their bodies. The touch she felt as them didn't belong to her, it didn't match. Whatever she felt there, it didn't come back with her. That's what makes her resistant to detachment syndrome, but-- At a cost. 

There's always a cost.

"You need touch, Syd," Ptonomy says, gently. "Your body needs it, not just your mind. There's been a lot of things in the way of you getting what you need to be healthy. But now you can, from Amy and from me."

"Not Lenny?" Syd asks, curious.

"I'm not a hugger," Lenny says. "Amy's the hugger, get your fix from her."

Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy. It feels wrong to benefit from their-- Disembodiment. Their minds are in danger of drifting away forever, but-- Because of that, the bodies they use to treat their own condition-- Can also treat hers.

"It's good for us, too," Ptonomy says. "Touch is a fundamental human need. A lot of the problems you have, even your antisocial disorder and your BPD, I believe they're caused or aggravated by a lifetime of touch starvation. You have developmental trauma from that, just like David. That trauma needs to be treated for you to get better. And the best treatment for developmental trauma is what we're doing now. It's being with your friends, it's being touched and held, it's compassion and love."

"Another diagnosis," Syd says, but she's not upset by this one.

"Think of developmental trauma as a big circle around all the other diagnoses," Ptonomy says. "Same as with David. Everything else you have is a subset of that trauma or aggravated by it. Sometimes it's good to get specific, but the big picture needs work, too. So how are you feeling now?"

"Better," Syd admits. When she first came up, she felt so-- She felt--

She felt ashamed. Just like David. The world she was born into, the body she was born into, they punished her. And she accepted their punishment as deserved. She punished herself and she took her anger out on the world. All that pain in her foundation, the loop of her maze-- "I internalized it. What happened to me."

"You did," Ptonomy says. "It wasn't your fault. Being born with your powers, the way they hurt you and caused other people to hurt you, that wasn't your fault. And now that we have a better understanding of what you need, we can help you get better. We can help you do more than just survive."

"But this is--" Syd starts. "You need your real bodies back."

"We do," Ptonomy says. "But that's okay. There are a lot of ways for us to deal with this, to make a supportive environment for you. What's important is that we figured it out. How about you tell me your foundation?"

"Um." Syd clears her head. "I can accept help. Life is war and we have to survive. And I am— Loved."

This time she isn't overcome by shame. Because she does feel loved. She feels loved by-- Amy and Ptonomy and Cary and Kerry. They gave her compassion and understanding. They gave her touch. She opened up to them and they-- Accepted her.

It feels ridiculous, that such small things could affect her so much. She's been locked down tight her whole life. But over the past week, Ptonomy pushed and coaxed her to open up just enough for her to let them in. And she did and-- It helped.

And David-- She doesn't know how David feels about any of this.

"Can I talk to David?" she asks Dvd. "Face to face? Please. I won't hurt him."

She doesn't feel like she has to, not right now. Maybe it won't last, she knows how David struggles with his shame. But right now she feels calm, truly calm and not-- The false calm that comes from wrapping all her pain so tightly around her heart that nothing can escape it.

Dvd looks skeptical, but Ptonomy gives his permission. Dvd leans back and closes his eyes. There's a long pause, and then-- 

David.

He takes a moment to orient himself. She doesn't know how long he was projected from his body but it must have been a while. He takes Amy's hand and lets her touch steady him.

"I'm sorry about this morning," Syd says. "What I said--"

"It's okay," David says, but she can see he's trying to not be sad about it. "You don't have to-- All of this, you have enough to deal with without-- Dealing with me."

"We both have a lot to deal with," Syd says. "It looks like we have another match."

David looks at her with those soulful eyes. "When you showed me your childhood--"

"You didn't understand," Syd says, accepting. "You tried, you really tried. But-- I wasn't teaching you, I was punishing you. If I really wanted you to understand, I would have just-- Told you." It seems so obvious in hindsight, from where she is right now. But she couldn't tell him then. "David, I don't want to punish you anymore."

"You didn't--"

"I did," Syd says, firmly. "I've been doing a lot of thinking on my own. I needed to be on my own for a while. But Ptonomy's right. I spent my whole life alone and-- It didn't help me."

"Your whole life?" David asks, and she sees the question he's really asking. She sees the fear in him that he failed her, that he was responsible somehow. She sees his acceptance of that. He wants to suffer for her, it's how he copes.

But what happened to her, her childhood, her powers. None of that had anything to do with him. 

"You know, when I went to Clockworks, it wasn't my choice," Syd says. "There was a man, a powerful man. I tried to hurt him so he had me committed. I knew I needed help, but-- I wasn't ready to accept it. When we were there, you were trying to get better. I wasn't."

"But Kissinger--"

"I told him what he wanted to hear," Syd says, plainly. "And when he said I could leave-- I just wanted to put all of that behind me. But I couldn't let you go because-- I love you."

David tenses. She can see so much in his eyes.

"I lied this morning," Syd tells him. "When I said I can't forgive you. I was lying to myself. I do forgive you. But forgiving you doesn't stop me from being hurt and angry. I'm going to get angry again, but-- I don't want to punish you. I don't want to do to you what my mom did to me."

She can see that David is already struggling. Whatever work he’s already done today, he’s not going to be able to do much more. "So-- What do you want?"

"You," Syd says, and it’s freeing to admit it. "Us. I want us, but-- Not the way we were."

David’s reluctantly amused. "I thought that was my line."

"It's a good line," Syd says. "I think both of us-- We have a lot of work to do to get better. But-- It might be easier if we do some of it together.”

She gives David time to think. He goes through a whole range of reactions, and he looks around at everyone before settling back on Syd. He takes a steadying breath.

"I haven't--" He starts, then tries again. "I've been-- I have to fix my system and myself and my possession trauma and-- Everyone's done a really good job making it manageable but-- I don't know if I can fix-- Us."

"You’re not doing any of that alone,” Ptonomy reminds him. “I think we can squeeze it in. What do you think, cruise director?"

"David's definitely done for today," Lenny says. "But how about-- Couples therapy? Tomorrow morning? We'll get you a good night's sleep, you'll be fresh and ready to go."

David looks doubtful.

"Trust the cruise director," Lenny tells him. "C'mon, it's worth a try, right? You'll have to talk about all this Syd stuff with Ptonomy anyway. Make it a conversation."

"A conversation," David echoes. "Okay."

Syd would have preferred a resounding yes, but it’s better than the no she got this morning. 

She gives him a smile and he reluctantly smiles back, just a bit. She hates how wary he is, but she has no one to blame for that but herself. She’s not sure how she would have reacted to her mom trying to patch things up. Maybe she would have been too angry to try. But David isn’t good at being angry. 

Dvd and Divad, on the other hand—

She’s not going to talk to them now. She needs to do it face-to-face with them, and— She’s not ready. She feels like she can do anything, but she knows this euphoric calm is only temporary. Pushing herself would only make her crash the same way David keeps crashing. Based on Lenny’s expression, David is getting close to that again. 

“I should let you rest,” Syd says. Maybe she should go. “I’ll go. I have a lot to think about.”

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Amy insists. “Stay with us. You’re our friend, Syd.”

“Stay with your friends,” Ptonomy says. “If you need to sit and think, sit and think with us. David will be fine. We’re all here to take care of both of you.”

He reaches out his hand. Syd hesitates, then takes it.

It’s strange to hold someone else’s hand. She worked so hard on her haphephobia because she wanted to hold David’s hand. She did it for him because she was afraid of losing him. But that fear is part of why she lost him. 

They never got around to her mantra, and her foundation— She needs to change her thinking about a lot of things. But she’s not facing it alone. She has friends who love her enough to help her get better.


	73. Day 10: You think we love that monster?

"Divad, it's time," Ptonomy says. "It's your turn to be in charge."

Divad doesn't want to go back in their body, not if it means more therapy. Even though he knows he needs help, even though he knows it's the logical solution, he doesn't want any part of it.

"David needs to stay in our body," Divad insists. "He's in no condition to step out."

David's worn out from dealing with not only his own therapy, but Dvd’s and Syd's. Adding Divad's on top of all that will set him back. David should stay where he is so he can get better. If Divad has to have therapy-- He can have disembodied relay therapy.

"David will be fine," Ptonomy says. "And no, this will not be relay therapy. This is not a group session. This is you, in your body, talking out loud to me."

"Absolutely not," Divad says. Is Ptonomy nuts? David will hear everything Divad says. Last time that happened David went away, hearing Divad's therapy will make him go away again.

"David's not going to hear it," Ptonomy says. "He's going to listen to music instead. Lenny made a playlist in the mainframe. David can’t wear headphones while he's projected, so Oliver's going to send it to him. Dvd will stay with him. Everyone's working together to make this happen. So you need to step up and do your part."

Divad looks over at David and Dvd. As weary as David is, he wants Divad to have his session. And Dvd--

Dvd has David back. It's not how it was, but-- They've spent most of the day together without him and it makes Divad feel like this is college all over again. And as much as he loved college, as much as he enjoys working with Cary and Oliver-- College was miserable for their system. He hated how furious Dvd was with him, he hated how guilty he felt about David, he hated hurting his system even though it felt necessary. He hates hurting his system now. He hates that it still feels necessary.

But that's why he needs therapy. He can't get it to stop feeling necessary on his own, not without turning himself off, making himself a-- A mutant powers junkie. And he hated David being a junkie too much to turn into one himself. 

So he won't turn himself off anymore, not unless he has to. And if he can't turn himself off-- He has to do the work.

"Alright, out," he tells David, unable to keep the frustration from his voice. He doesn't want to take his anger out on David, he never did, but it happens anyway. It makes him feel so helpless and out of control. Even Syd's doing better than he is.

David steps out, and Divad steps in. He doesn't say anything, just stands and takes their tired body up to the loft so he can have his session. He can hear David feeling hurt, but then David stops thinking about Divad because Oliver is sending him music. Divad can't hear what music Lenny picked, but he can hear David thinking about it. It's the same as the stuff she liked in Clockworks. David liked all that weird music too, it helped him pretend he was somewhere else, that he was anywhere but where he was. 

Lenny's always done a better job of managing David than Divad ever could, but he never took her seriously because she's a junkie. If he had any control over their body during those years, he wouldn't have let David be friends with her or Benny. David shouldn't have been making friends in the first place. If David hadn't been friends with Lenny, if he'd just kept to their system, Farouk wouldn't have been able to use Lenny to get control of their body and David would never have become too traumatized to share. They wouldn't have been used to kill all those people. A whole lot of terrible things would never have happened.

Ptonomy sits down. "Let's go back a bit. This is therapy, not a race. Your challenges are different from Syd's, from Dvd's and David's. It's okay that you're not where they are."

"You're the one who said it was a race," Divad points out.

"It's a team event," Ptonomy says. "All of us need to get better together so we can win. I know you want to be part of that, but you spent all day isolating yourself."

"I stayed with Cary and Oliver," Divad counters. "That was the deal." He didn't have to talk to Dvd and David as long as he talked to someone else.

"It was," Ptonomy agrees. "But you didn't talk to them about how you feel. You talked about science."

"Science is how I keep us safe," Divad counters. "I have to keep us safe."

"You do," Ptonomy agrees. "We're in a very dangerous situation. We all have to keep each other safe. But part of that means agreeing on what safe is, how to achieve it. If we don't have the same goals, we're not going to reach them. So what's safe to you?"

"What do you think?" Divad asks, sarcastic. "How about: not being tortured by an omniscient monster?"

"We all agree on that," Ptonomy says, wryly. "What else?"

"What's else is there?" Divad challenges.

"That's fair," Ptonomy says. "So let's break it down. How are you keeping us safe?"

"I'm healing our body," Divad says, and he's proud of that. "I'm keeping David safe from his dreams. I'm keeping him stable so he doesn't get out of control."

"You're controlling him."

"He asked for my help," Divad says, not liking the accusing edge to that. "And you did too, so what's the problem?"

"It's more of a concern," Ptonomy says. "Farouk abused your system through David's misdiagnosis, tortured your system with medication. First he did that by forcing your system to take what you all knew you didn't need. Then he made David believe he needed the medication so he'd torture your system with it and blame himself when it failed to work. And now? You're the one in control of David's neurochemical stability. That's a lot of power to have over him, especially when you're one of David's abusers."

Divad straightens up. "Excuse me?"

"Don't act surprised," Ptonomy says. "You've been using your powers to stop yourself from continuing that abuse."

"Yeah, but apparently that makes me a junkie so I stopped," Divad says. "What do you want from me?"

"What do you want?" Ptonomy replies. "Now that you're not suppressing your anger, that abuse has resumed. You're staying away from David so you don't hurt him, but you're thinking incredibly hurtful things about him and you won't be able to bottle that up for long. Do you really want to stop that abuse, or does hurting David give you something you want more?"

"Like what?" Divad challenges.

"It wasn't your choice to give up being in charge," Ptonomy says. "My concern is that this really is college all over again, or rather, the years that led up to college. What happened during those years? We know the story from the outside. David was in bad shape. He lost his mother, his schizophrenia got worse. He started acting out in school, at home, then he took it to the streets. He was arrested, sometimes violently. He was hospitalized. His family didn't know what to do. And then suddenly things started to look up. Everyone thought the medication was finally helping. David was better. But he wasn't better. So what's that story from the inside?"

'None of your business' is what Divad wants to say. But he knows how well that would go down. He's just glad Ptonomy isn't a memory walker anymore. He sighs and gets on with it.

"David was a wreck, obviously," Divad says. "Losing Mom, the misdiagnosis, the monster. All that was bad enough. But then he heard things. She was sick for a long time. He told us-- Dad and Amy, even though they were sad-- They were relieved. They wanted her pain to stop. But that's what they thought about us. They wanted our pain to stop. I told him they didn't want us to die, that didn't make any sense, but-- David couldn't let it go. He was mad at Mom for dying, at Amy and Dad for their thoughts. He said they were lying to him, they didn't love him, he was paranoid. He got so bad--"

"What did you do?"

"He was this close to suicide-by-cop," Divad explains, showing their pinched fingers. "We wanted to put him in our bedroom but we couldn't, so we had to-- Restrain him. Just-- Until he calmed down. And I covered for him. And that's when I realized-- When we did that, the monster left us alone."

"Usually you either shared with David or covered for him after he was broken, right?" Ptonomy asks.

"Yeah, we'd never-- It was David's life, we weren't supposed to just-- Take charge of it. And you know, Dvd acts so high and mighty, like he had nothing to do with it, but he agreed with me." At first. "We had to stop David."

"So you imprisoned him."

"Hey, don't act like you didn't do the same thing," Divad shoots back. "We couldn't ask for help. No one believed us about anything because we were crazy. We calmed him down, we got him better, we let him be in charge again. But every time we did, the monster broke David all over again."

"And that's when you decided to take charge permanently?"

"It wasn't supposed to be permanent," Divad insists. It really wasn't. He refused to heal David, which kept Dvd busy. But it took so long to find the answers they needed. It took too long. David was recovering, slowly, and Dvd started pushing to put David back in charge. But Divad didn't want that. So he-- Sabotaged David's recovery. 

"You broke him," Ptonomy realizes. "Dvd wouldn't go along with what you wanted, so you took matters into your own hands."

"I was going to fix him," Divad insists. "When it was safe."

"How?" Ptonomy asks. "By making him forget?"

"David forgot a lot of things. And if he was just going to forget-- Look, I know it sounds bad."

"It sounds extremely bad," Ptonomy says, gravely.

"We had a monster in our head and no one would help us," Divad insists. "I needed more time."

"And then you ran out of time," Ptonomy says. "So now what? Do you want to abuse David and sabotage his recovery again?"

"No!" Divad insists. He doesn't, but— He can’t say he wouldn’t. 

"That’s your system’s developmental trauma,” Ptonomy says. “And you and David are mirror images of that trauma. Farouk was your world and he taught both of you the same thing: that David deserves to be hurt, that he needs to be punished. But that's not your idea, it's Farouk’s. And you don’t want it, I know you're trying to reject that idea. You don’t want to hurt David, you don’t want him to hurt himself."

"Yeah, and I finally found a way to stop myself but you people talked me out of it," Divad says, angry.

"Suppressing your trauma won't make it go away," Ptonomy reminds him. "You have to face it, process it."

“And now's the time for that?” Divad asks, unable to keep the panic from his voice. They know Farouk is planning his next move, and whatever it is it’s going to be horrific. Now is not the time to get distracted and let down their guard. 

“Now is exactly the time,” Ptonomy insists. “This is the best shot we have. We know who Farouk is, we know how he works and what he wants. The details vary, but the pattern of abuse we see again and again is clear. Emotional blackmail. He defines the choices of his victims while simultaneously making them feel completely responsible for those choices. Your system's developmental trauma makes you especially vulnerable to emotional blackmail, especially David, and especially because Farouk changed him to lower his defenses. But you're vulnerable too. All that anger you're refusing to confront makes you vulnerable. You want to hurt David. Farouk will use that. He already has."

"I didn't torture David for Farouk," Divad insists. "It was to get Farouk out."

"Are you sure?” Ptonomy asks. "And all the other times you yelled at him, told him that he wasn't capable of making the right decision, that he ruins everything? Those words show up again and again in David's thoughts and yours."

Divad really hates telepathic therapy. 

"And that's not the only vulnerability you have," Ptonomy continues, to Divad's dread. "You know what happened to your system isn't David's fault. You know he was controlled and manipulated so much he didn't even know which way was up. But just before we started this session, what were you doing?"

Divad glares at him.

"This isn't just about you blaming David. It's about who you're not blaming," Ptonomy says. "It's about your system's emotional attachment to Farouk."

Divad raises his eyebrows. "You think we love that monster?"

"You all loved King," Ptonomy counters. "And Farouk said he tried to make David love him.”

“He was lying,” Divad says, dismissive.

“Maybe,” Ptonomy says. “Only David kept those early memories and those were taken from him. So there's a lot we don't know. But we can make an educated guess. We know the patterns that happen with caregiver abuse.”

“He’s a monster, not a caregiver,” Divad points out. Farouk couldn’t care for a houseplant. 

“He lived inside you since you were a baby,” Ptonomy counters. “He was an enormous influence in your life, bigger than anyone else. Developmental trauma, remember? You accepted him, you didn’t know any better.”

“Fine,” Divad relents. Goddamn developmental trauma.

“If caregivers meet a child's needs, it feels like the world is a fundamentally safe place, other people are good, the child is good. But if those needs aren't met, the universe isn't safe, other people can't be relied on, the child is bad. In situations with chronic, traumatic abuse--"

"I know about attachment theory," Divad says, annoyed.

"Then you know that all children mimic their caregivers," Ptonomy says. "Our caregivers present a world to us and we copy them to survive in it."

"I am nothing like that monster," Divad says, furious. "You know, this whole plan of yours? It's not gonna work because you think you can fix David, you think you can teach him not to fuck things up. Well let me tell you, fucking things up is what David does. That's why I have to be in charge. You wanna waste time healing him? The longer we wait, the worse it's gonna be. If Division 3 had any sense they'd take this crown off right now and let me fix things."

"And how would you fix things?" Ptonomy challenges, not backing down at all. "You control your body, not the world. Farouk isn't inside you anymore. What can you do to stop Farouk, to really stop him?"

Divad doesn't have an answer for that.

"You're incredibly angry about what you’ve had to endure," Ptonomy says. "You’re furious and it's a righteous anger. But Farouk didn’t just control David. He used your anger to control you, to make you hurt David and yourself. Every time you hurt David, you're doing what Farouk wants."

Divad knows all that. He knows it, it disgusts him, he doesn’t want to be used that way anymore. But every time David makes a choice, they all suffer. When David couldn’t make choices, things were better. The monster left them alone when David was broken. 

“That was his lesson,” Ptonomy says, softer now. “The pain stops when David breaks, when he’s been given the right dose of pain to treat his sickness. And then he’s allowed to be comforted, loved, healed as a reward. Suffer because you’re bad; accept your brokenness, your punishment, and that will earn you love. King’s love, Farouk’s love, your system's love, even our love. That’s why David wanted to stay in Clockworks, that’s why he’s afraid of getting better. Because getting better means he's going to be punished again. We've all been part of that cycle but now we have the chance to break it."

Divad has to take a moment because he's never had their entire life laid so bare.

Punishment to treat David's sickness. Healing as a reward for-- Accepting the punishment. It's so-- Unspeakably cruel and-- Utterly Farouk. They've lived through that cycle so many times. Farouk-- Wrote that lesson into their mind, into their heart. Even with Farouk out of their body, even with him just sitting back and watching, Divad's been trying to carry it out yet again. And David, and Dvd. None of them have been able to stop it.

Even when David forgot everything else, he remembered that lesson. Years after Farouk took everything away, David still knew he had to be punished for his sickness. He didn't have Divad to do it so he found people who would. And if they didn’t punish him enough, he did it himself. Divad always felt like— That was David making everything worse. Watching helplessly while David hung them was one of the worst tortures they ever experienced. David did that to them. But all he was doing was-- What he was taught. He knew he had to break himself to make the punishment stop, to be loved, even if that meant--

Divad feels sick.

"The three of you are still that child, terrified of Farouk’s punishment,” Ptonomy says. “You had no choice but to accept that lesson when you were young. Until now, it didn't matter which identity was in charge of your system because Farouk was the one who was truly in charge. But you can make your own choices now. So make them. Stop living out the nightmare he designed for you."

"How?" Divad asks, because he can't see any way out.

"Keep doing the work," Ptonomy says. "Your anger is part of the lesson, so work on your anger. When you catch yourself blaming David, put that blame where it truly belongs: on Farouk. You know the patterns he built for you. Recognize them and break them. Our goal for your system's therapy is healthy multiplicity. That's all three of you working together and treating each other with love and respect. Make that your goal."

"That all sounds--" Divad starts. "I want that but-- I can't stop myself. Not without--"

"You don't need your powers to manage your anger," Ptonomy says. "You need to recognize what's hiding beneath it. It's the same shame and fear and helplessness that David has, that Dvd has. You all share the same trauma because you're all Davids, because you're a system that shares everything. You want to be closer to David and Dvd, but your anger isolates you from them. That isolation is how you coped with the role that Farouk forced you into, with the guilt you felt every time you hurt David."

"I can't tell him," Divad says. "What I did to him-- David-- He'll never trust me. And Dvd's never going to forgive me."

"You won't know if you never give them the chance," Ptonomy says. "Try apologizing to them. Give them time to work through their feelings. If you can show them you've changed, that you're not going to stay trapped in that cycle-- That will mean a lot to them. And it will help them break their parts of the cycle. You're all facing this together. Help each other through it. It'll be a lot easier than trying to do it all on your own."

Divad nods. It all sounds-- Manageable. He gives a dry laugh, thinking about how important that's been for David, that Lenny and Ptonomy and everyone have made the work feel manageable. Because the truth is that all of this is-- Incredibly difficult. They've been living out these patterns their whole lives. And now they have to change all at once before Farouk can force them to live it out again.

Divad's never tried to get better before. He had nothing but disdain for the doctors and therapists who couldn't see past their fake schizophrenia. He watched David try to get better, but David kept failing, he failed every time. But-- That's because it didn't matter what David did. Farouk wouldn't ever let him make the right choices, he wouldn't ever let David get better. It's always been Farouk.

"Change is hard," Ptonomy admits. "And we are asking a lot. But this is our best shot. We have to give it everything we have. And-- This idea that there's a right choice, a single true path to safety? That's one of Farouk's ideas. If David hadn't made friends with Lenny, Farouk would have found other ways to manipulate him. If David hadn't tried to kill your system, he wouldn't have ended up at Summerland. I can see the whole world through the mainframe, and the world is-- Vast and unpredictable, chaotic, contradictory. Looking for a perfect choice-- You might as well try to predict the path of a single raindrop in a hurricane. Don't let Farouk's perfection be the enemy of your system's good."

Divad feels-- Overwhelmed by all of this. "This is all-- A lot," he admits. 

"That's why David has his foundation and his mantra," Ptonomy says. "That's why your system needs a foundation." He hands Divad the notebook Dvd wrote their ideas into. "What ideas do you want to put into it?"

Divad looks over the list. It's already substantial.

_We're all Davids._  
We're all people.  
We're brothers.  
We're all going to get better.  
We have to stay alive for each other.  
Our mind is our own.  
We belong to ourselves.  
We've lost things we'll never get back. But we're here and we're not alone.  
We share everything.  
We have healthy multiplicity. 

They're all-- Really good ideas. Watching David and Dvd write that together-- Divad felt like they were doing it without him on purpose, even though he was the one who refused to sit with them. He was jealous of Dvd the way he's always been jealous of Dvd. Because David chose to love Dvd instead of Divad.

"I don't know how your system worked before David was changed," Ptonomy says, "but I know how David works. He's always had enough love for everyone in his life. I think-- If you'd told David what you were trying to do to save your system, he would have let you be in charge because he trusted you and loved you. You never had to hurt him, not then and not now."

It's those words that finally put a crack in the anger around Divad's heart. He doesn't cry, he's not-- Emotional the way David and Dvd are. But he feels-- Grief. Regret. He feels the loss of-- All those years he could have had David's love, if he hadn't spent them punishing David.

All those years. Farouk took so much from them. Not David, _Farouk_ , because Farouk took those years from David, too.

He's reminded, suddenly, of something Kerry said to David, all the way back at the beginning. What was it? Something about-- Not hurting the people they love. It had struck Divad as ridiculously simplistic at the time. But-- If they're trying to find a better way to be, a healthy system to copy-- They could do a lot worse than Kerry and Cary's system.

He takes the pen and pauses at the next empty line. What if-- Maybe he shouldn't--

"Don't be afraid to try," Ptonomy says. "You're building your foundation. Put in whatever you feel your system needs to get better. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. The three of you can keep changing it together."

Divad takes a breath and writes:

_We forgive each other._  
We accept each other.  
We make decisions together.  
We try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do.  
We don't stay angry on purpose. 

He pauses, and then adds:

_We love each other._

He's not sure how he feels about asking for all of that. But if they need an antidote to Farouk's poison-- These ideas are the antidote. If they forgive and accept each other, no one will be punished. If they make decisions together, they can't be turned against each other. If they hurt their system — themselves or each other — they'll apologize so they don't stay angry. And if they love each other--

If they love each other, maybe they can make the torture stop. 

"Now that’s real progress,” Ptonomy says, pleased. “How about you go down and show your brothers what you added? Give that first apology a try."

"I can't tell David what I did to him," Divad insists. He knows he’ll have to, but David’s in no condition for that. 

"Then wait until he’s ready," Ptonomy says. "Apologize to him for the ways you've hurt him since you got back. And you have hurt him, Divad. David's good at taking the pain he's given, but that doesn't mean it's something he should have to do. That pain is a burden on him, slowing down his recovery. See if you can take some of it away, speed things up. I think it'll make sharing your body tonight a lot easier for him."

"Okay," Divad says, and readies himself to go down there and do the work.


	74. Day 10: He's not going to be forgotten.

David might have only heard music during Divad’s session, but everyone else heard everything. 

Dvd heard everything. And as Divad walks over, angled so David doesn’t see, Dvd gives Divad an absolutely murderous glare. 

Dvd’s spent most of their life angry at him for being angry at David. And that was fine. Divad didn’t need Dvd to love him. He didn’t need anyone to love him. It was more important that Divad did his job and kept them safe. When David was in charge, that meant telling him what he did wrong so he wouldn’t do it again. But David kept making mistakes anyway, so Divad had to tell him again and again because David needed reminders about everything and he was so stupid, so gullible, falling for the monster’s tricks, saying the wrong things, lashing out when he should be keeping their head down and just getting through the day because life was already miserable enough and they didn’t need David making things worse.

David asking for help made things worse. David trying to kill their system made things worse. Eventually, Divad realized that the only answer was for David to never be in charge again. But breaking David didn’t stop the monster, not for good. Nothing will ever stop the monster.

But here Divad is, against all logic and rational sense, trying to stop the monster, trying to put aside a lifetime of lessons he never wanted to learn. If Ptonomy is right their system needs to be whole, and whole means healthy multiplicity, it means working together and treating each other with love and respect. It means getting rid of the idea that what happened to them was David’s fault.

It still feels like it was David’s fault. But that means Divad’s just like Syd, blaming David for what was done to him.

Divad’s really glad Syd doesn’t have the relay. 

David tightens his hold on Dvd’s hand as Divad sits down in the loveseat next to Amy. David is between Dvd and Lenny, and Syd and Oliver are in the other loveseat while Cary and Kerry are enjoying the beanbag chairs. They’re a cozy group, the ten of them, even with Ptonomy still up in the loft, giving Divad the space to put their session work into practice.

All of these people, David’s friends, their friends— They’re listening and watching so they can help. They have to learn what Farouk already knows. Secrecy made life easier for Farouk; everyone knowing everything makes it harder. It’s logical, it makes complete sense. But it’s difficult to accept. 

A lot of things are difficult to accept even when he knows they’re true. That’s why their system needs a foundation.

“David,” Divad starts, because David is the only one who needs any of this explained. Because David is the one that Divad broke. 

David is looking at him, uncertain, expectant. He glances at the notebook in Divad’s hands, then at Divad again. ‘What did they talk about? Everyone tried not to react but I know it was bad. Divad looks tense.’

Divad forces himself to relax, though there’s only so much he can do without using his powers. He reminds himself that he never had to hurt David and he doesn’t now. Maybe that should be his mantra. 

“David,” Divad starts again. “You were right. Our system should have healthy multiplicity.”

“Oh,” David says, surprised, and relaxes. “That’s— That’s great! Right?”

He looks to Dvd, and Dvd does a good job faking happy for David. But he has a lot of practice. 

“Yeah, it’s great,” Dvd says, smiling for him. 

Divad smiles, too, and it doesn’t feel totally fake. “I talked to Ptonomy about what our system needs to get better.”

Divad puts the notebook on the table so David and Dvd can see it the additions he made to their foundation ideas.

 _We forgive each other._  
We accept each other.  
We make decisions together.  
We try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do.  
We don't stay angry on purpose.  
We love each other. 

“Wow, these are—“ David starts, and he pauses, obviously touched. “Thank you. I know all of this has been— Really hard for you, for all of us, but— With this—“ ‘Maybe this will work. We’re three Davids making a new system. Maybe this will actually work.’

‘Is this a joke?’ Dvd thinks at him. ‘Because I’m not laughing.’

‘Look, I know you’re mad,’ Divad replies.

‘Mad?’ Dvd thinks. ‘If we still had our bedroom I’d take you there and kick the living shit out of you. You don’t deserve to be a David, you absolute _shit beetle_.’

'Fuck you,' Divad thinks back, he's not going to let Dvd call him that again.

“Either you two are having a staring contest or you’re fighting again,” David says, annoyed. ‘Why do I even try?’ he thinks, with a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh, they're definitely fighting," Kerry says.

Divad know that if they’re going to salvage this, he has to be the mature one. As usual. “I’m sorry, David. We shouldn’t fight.” ‘Not in front of David,’ he thinks at Dvd.

‘Oh, so you want me to make it easier for you to fuck with him?’ Dvd thinks back. ‘You think you can put your lies in our foundation? You don’t even have the right to touch our notebook.’

‘It’s our system’s notebook so I have every right,’ Divad replies. 

‘You’re not part of us, you’re— Farouk’s,’ Dvd thinks, his lip curling in furious disgust despite his attempt to hold a calm expression for David’s sake. 

“Hey, that’s enough,” Lenny says, tersely. “Keep yelling at each other and I’ll start relaying to David.”

“You’re not supposed to tell him our thoughts,” Dvd protests. 

“A telepathic conversation is still a conversation,” Lenny says. “I know you don’t want to upset David but guess what?” She makes a game-show buzzer sound. “Stop being angry and try again. Both of you.”

Divad doesn’t see how it’s fair for him to share the blame when Dvd was the one who started it.

“I’m sorry, but— He started it?" Amy says, somewhere between amused and disappointed. "Divad, it doesn't matter who started it. Do you remember-- David, what was the worst part about my job as a realtor? I complained to you about it all the time."

David thinks back. "People going through a divorce?" 

"Exactly," Amy says. "Divad, Dvd-- That's what you two sound like. When you argue you're not trying to resolve anything, you're just hurting your system. And isn't that what you're all trying not to do?" She points at the notebook. "'We try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do.'"

" _He_ doesn't get to add things to our foundation," Dvd insists.

"You and David added plenty of things without him," Amy counters. "And these are all-- They're ideas you're trying to share. It's not your foundation until you all agree on it together. If you need help, start with your own contributions. 'We're all Davids. We're all going to get better. We have healthy multiplicity.' You wrote those yourself, you agreed to them with David. Were you lying to David?"

"Of course not!" Dvd protests. "But-- What he did--" He looks at David. "There's a line and he crossed it."

"I was trying to save us," Divad insists. "I know it was wrong, okay? That's why I wrote those." He points at the notebook. "'We try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do.' So-- I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I screwed up, I hurt our system, I hurt David, I'm sorry. So stop yelling at me!"

"Liar," Dvd sneers. "You lied to me, you lied to my face and you--" He cuts himself off.

"Can you please just tell me?" David asks, exasperated. "I know it's been a long day, but-- Is it really that bad that you can't tell me?"

Divad looks to Dvd, and this is probably the one thing they can actually agree on. "Yes," they both say, like they're sharing.

David stands up and walks away, walks back. He rubs at his face. "I'm dealing with a lot here. And you guys-- You're not making this any easier. So if you're not ready to have an actual conversation about-- Whatever it's actually safe to talk about, then-- Then-- " He looks around, points to the window. "Project yourselves to the other side of that window so I don't have to be in the same room as you!"

"I'm the one in our body," Divad reminds him.

"Then give it back," David says, tersely. 

"You two had it all day," Divad says. Even though he didn't want to step back in, now that he's here-- "It's my turn, remember?"

"What, you're not going to run away and drop it again?" Dvd sneers.

"Dvd," Cary chides. "Divad and David are both trying very hard. You've had your differences, you endured terrible trials, but-- No matter how bad things got, you were always together and you'll always be together. The only way you'll all get better together is if you accept each other."

"I don't want to accept him," Dvd tells Cary. "He's-- What he did to David--"

"It's very serious," Cary agrees. "It won't be overlooked. Divad has a great deal of work ahead of him. But he's acknowledged that and he's trying to take his first steps. He's trying to be better so your system can be better. Dvd, I know you're afraid that David will be hurt again, but you're not protecting him alone. We're all here to help you keep your system safe."

"That's right," Kerry adds. "You don't have to be afraid, okay? You know I won't let anything bad happen to David. If Divad tries anything, I'll punch him in the face, just like I punched you."

This seems to calm Dvd down. "And you'll kick him in the shins?" Dvd asks, with grudging relief.

"Really hard," Kerry promises. 

"Okay," Dvd says. "But-- If he's lying--"

"We can all hear his thoughts," Cary reminds Dvd. "He can't lie to us. If Divad has any dangerous ideas hurting him, we'll know right away. We can help him fight those ideas before they make him hurt your system. Just like we did today. We heard the danger and we were able to help your system. Right?"

"Yeah," Dvd says, and looks around at everyone. "You did." He looks at Kerry again, and-- He relaxes.

Divad can't remember Dvd ever actually _relaxing_. None of them has ever been able to let down their guard. There was no one they could trust. They were on their own.

But they're not alone anymore. David trusts these people, his friends, their friends. And Dvd trusts them, too, or at least he trusts Kerry. Kerry was the one who David trusted when he couldn't trust anyone else. Kerry's words helped Divad write the ideas he wants to share with his system. Kerry just got Dvd to stop yelling at him, and even if she threatened to punch him-- She punched Dvd to protect David. Kerry was the one who was there for David when he woke up in their cell and she stayed with him and defended him and stopped him from hurting himself. Kerry loves David and she promised to keep him safe and she wasn't lying, even without hearing her thoughts they know she isn't lying.

If their system can trust one person the way they all trust Kerry-- 

Maybe she's their real foundation.

"Divad," Kerry says, and Divad turns to see her looking at him. She looks incredibly touched. She stands up. "I'm gonna give you a hug, okay?"

"Um, okay," Divad says, and it's not like he can say no when Kerry's already marching over, looking absolutely determined. She sits down on their lap and gives Divad a hug so tight he can barely breathe.

"This is for all the Davids," Kerry says. "I promise I'll keep all the Davids safe. No matter what, okay? If there's any bad ideas-- I'll stab them twice in the heart before they can hurt you."

Divad's not used to trusting people any more than Dvd is. Even working with Ptonomy-- He's helped their system so much but-- Kerry. She's--

She loves them. She really does.

Divad tightens his hold on her. David and Dvd-- he wants to be with them, but it's so hard. The anger, the guilt, the ideas in his head-- The delusions from their developmental trauma, from Farouk's lessons. Divad was supposed to be the one who protected David's mind but he failed. So now-- Both their minds needs protecting. All their minds. Kerry and all of their friends-- That's what they're doing. They're protecting all the Davids so all the Davids can get better.

Thank you, he thinks, to Kerry, to all of them.

Divad hears David longing to be the one in Kerry's arms, and he glances over and sees that Dvd wants that, too. But they can't all share together, not yet. And it's Divad's turn. He needs this. He presses their face against Kerry's shoulder, against her hair.

He hears David sit back down on the sofa. "Can we try this again?" David asks Dvd. "Please?"

Dvd gives a reluctant sigh. "Yeah, I guess. I mean-- They are some pretty good ideas. Not staying angry on purpose--" He looks over at Divad and Kerry. "That's one of Kerry's."

Divad eases his hold on Kerry. He needs to engage with his brothers. He doesn't let go of Kerry entirely, but lets her shift to face Dvd and David.

"They're all--" Divad starts. It's hard to open up to David and Dvd, but he can do it because he has Kerry. "We had-- We were taught wrong about-- A lot of things. We need to learn how to be a healthy system. So the ideas I wrote down-- They're from Kerry and Cary. How they are together, everything they do to-- Actually help each other."

Kerry picks up the notebook and looks over the ideas. She hands it to Cary and he reads them.

"Of course we heard--" Cary says, and adjusts his glasses. "But to hear you say it, to see how important we are to you-- I'm deeply honored, Divad. And I'd be honored for all of your system to accept our ideas. Kerry and I-- We have difficult moments ourselves. There will always be challenges. But as long as we face them together, trust each other, love each other--" He gives Kerry a meaningful look, and she smiles back.

Cary puts the notebook back on the table, angled so all the Davids can read it.

"Kerry," Cary says, bracing himself for something. "There's something I've been-- Afraid to tell you. Because I thought you'd be-- Terribly disappointed in me and-- Because I'm disappointed in myself."

"Cary?" Kerry asks, concerned. She turns in their lap. "What's wrong?"

"You've been doing so well, being-- The one of us on the outside," Cary says. "Seeing you thrive-- It means more to me than anything. But-- I need help, too. I need help-- Being inside."

Kerry frowns, confused. "But being inside is easy."

"It is for you," Cary allows. "But being inside was all you knew, until now. And until now-- All I knew was being outside. I know you want us to sleep together tonight as well, but-- I'm afraid."

Their arm is around Kerry's waist, and Kerry holds on to it. "You're afraid of me?" she asks, upset.

"No, no, of course not," Cary soothes. "I suppose-- I'm afraid of myself. Of how I've been-- Changed. Every time I've been inside you-- I don't know, maybe-- Perhaps I'm doing it wrong or perhaps we're simply not meant to be this way. But-- It's very difficult for me. I hoped it would get easier, and then I just wanted to help you be outside, but now that you want me to be inside-- I'm afraid it will be difficult again. I'm afraid-- I'll lose who I am."

"You'll never lose who you are," Kerry declares. "You're Cary."

Cary gives her a sad, vulnerable look. Kerry looks even more upset, but then-- She looks determined.

"You're right," Kerry says. "I'm outside now, so-- It's my turn to help you. And-- We don't have to sleep together tonight if you don't want to, but-- I guess-- I feel like-- I need you to be inside. Or maybe-- I needed that since we changed but-- I was still trying to be inside you so I got confused. You said-- We might get detachment syndrome, too? From physical projection?"

"It's possible," Cary admits. "I know we have a great deal on our plates already, but--"

Kerry leaves their lap and goes right to Cary's. "It'll be okay," she says, as they hug each other. 

Divad hasn't known Cary long, even accounting for the time he got to know him through David. But he knows Cary is a protector like him. To see Cary genuinely asking for help, to see him vulnerable with Kerry, the one he's always kept safe-- Whether Cary meant it that way or not, it's one hell of a lesson. And a better lesson than anything Farouk ever taught them.

He looks at David. Maybe-- 

"David," he says, hoping this isn't a terrible mistake. Someone better stop him if this is a mistake. "I try not to be, but-- I'm-- I'm very angry about what happened to us. I felt-- Helpless. Because it was your life, but-- I still had to live it. So when you did things, when you were-- When you made the wrong choices--" He sees Amy wince, so he stops and tries again. "The things Farouk did to you. To us. It was-- It helped me survive to-- Not be you. That's-- What we are, our system. Me and Dvd-- We're not you. But we are you, we're all Davids, and-- Being angry at you for what happened-- I know it's just-- A way for me to-- Push all of that even further away from me. I know that. When I'm not angry I know that. When I get angry I want to punish you and--" He glances at Syd. There's really no better way to say this than the way she already did. "David, I don't want to punish you anymore."

David does not miss the similarity. He looks at Syd, too, but she can't see him do it. Syd stares at Divad like she's realizing something horrible. Divad's fairly sure what it is. Shit, he'd better clean this mess up before David has to.

"Syd," Divad says, turning to her. He's trying to remember how much of his session with Ptonomy was aloud and how much was through the relay. Would this be better or worse if Syd had the relay? "He didn't know. He couldn't remember me."

"Wait, hold on," David says, trying to take all this in. 'Is he saying-- I love Syd because-- She hurts me?'

Shit. Divad looks to Amy for help. But Lenny's already on damage control.

"Of course not," Lenny says. Then she stares pointedly at Syd. "Of course you don't love Syd just because she fucks up sometimes." She turns back to David. "You don't love Amy just because she fucks up sometimes, right?"

David starts to calm. "No, of course not." 

"People fuck up all the time," Lenny continues. "You don't fall in love with all of them. You love her because you love her, and she loves you because she loves you. The end, cue the orchestra."

David looks at Syd. 'Does she love me? She said she does. She said she wants 'us' back. But--'

"Eh, save it for tomorrow morning," Lenny says. "This is Divad-time, not Syd-time. Remember, pick what you want to focus on and focus on it. Don't let it sneak off."

"Right," David says. 'Focus. We have to sleep together tonight. Divad just had a session-- I need to focus on Divad.' He looks to Divad. "Um, where were we?"

Divad can't help but be amused. David is still David, no matter what he remembers. And if Lenny gives her approval, then telling David was the right choice. "I was saying-- I need your help so I can-- Learn how to be-- A David." At David's confusion, he continues. "Dvd hates me so much because-- We used to share everything. And then I stopped. I turned my back on our system. I made decisions for all of us, I treated you-- Very badly." In the end he treated David like he wasn't even there. And Farouk loves to twist the knife, so he made it so that-- Divad wasn't there. "Dvd's right. College was my fault."

"Mark the calendar," Dvd says, grimly pleased.

"Divad--" David starts, concerned.

"It's okay," Divad insists. "Farouk knows us, right? He knows us better than we know ourselves. Not just you. He was-- Teaching me one of his lessons." He feels a bubble of panic in their chest, thinking of all the _lessons_. He's not sure if it makes him feel better or worse to think of them that way. It was abuse, Farouk wasn't teaching them anything but misery. But they learned it anyway.

"It's not okay," David says, and he's-- Actually angry. But not at Divad. "He trapped you inside m-- Our body for a decade. That's-- He did that to me for a few days and I'm--" 'A disaster.'

"It's not the same," Divad insists. "We're a system. Even when me and Dvd were trapped, our system was still in control. That monster was never part of our system."

"But he was always there," David says, unhappily. "I just didn't know. And I don't-- I barely even know how to be David, much less a David. If you want to learn that--" He looks to Dvd.

"Oh no," Dvd says, crossing his arms. "Not a chance."

"You have to," David insists. "You're the only one who can help Divad be a David."

"That doesn't even make any sense," Dvd grouches. "We're all Davids, that's just what we are. And-- And Lenny was the one who decided that!"

"Passing the buck, huh?" Lenny says, amused. "I'm passing it back.”

“Divad,” Amy says. “What does it mean to you to be a David?"

Divad isn't sure, he was just trying to be like Cary. Their inside/outside thing isn't exactly the same, but-- He's just-- Trying to figure out how to-- Not be alone. "It means not being alone," he admits. "When I was in charge and Dvd and David were together all the time-- They didn't need me so I didn't need them. What you said about divorce-- We can't leave each other physically, but-- I still left. And that hurt our system so-- I'm sorry for hurting our system."

"So being a David is-- Being together?" Amy prompts. "Accepting them and-- Being accepted?"

Divad shrugs. He feels incredibly uncomfortable asking for all this, being so vulnerable. He's still braced for Dvd to start yelling at him again or for his own anger to take control of him. If it was just the three of them, they'd never have gotten this far. But their friends are protecting them from their anger, pulling them back from-- Dangerous thoughts. Giving them better ones. 

That's supposed to be Divad's job. That's why he was always telling David what not to do, what not to think. But he didn't do the other part of the job. He didn't have any good thoughts to replace the dangerous ones with. And there were never any good choices, so-- All he ended up doing was-- Telling David to not do _anything_ , over and over, until David couldn't do anything. And then that was how Divad rationalized-- Never letting David ever do anything again.

He never had to hurt David and he doesn’t now. But the more he accepts that-- The more sick he feels. The more he feels like-- He's the one who ruined everything. That being imprisoned for all those years-- The monster's lesson was right. It was what he deserved.

Amy takes their hand and holds it in both of hers. "None of you ruined anything," she tells him. "You were tortured by a monster that you had no way to escape. You did the best you could in a terrible situation. Of course you made mistakes, but-- your mistakes aren't who you are. The shame you feel isn't who you are. You have to find forgiveness, from yourself and those you hurt. Just like they need to find forgiveness for their mistakes. Just like we all do."

Divad looks at their hand in Amy's. He meets her eyes. He's been-- Trying to find forgiveness for her. For Clockworks, for the things David heard, for making them take medication they didn't need, for not believing them for so long. He's never been angry at Amy the same way he gets angry at David, but-- Forgiveness is difficult. 

Maybe-- If he forgives Amy, it will help him forgive David. It will help him forgive himself. What was it Syd said? No, she was talking about David forgiving himself, not how to forgive other people. How does he forgive someone else? 

"How to forgive someone else?" Ptonomy asks, as he walks up to them. "It's not really about the person we're forgiving. It's something we do for ourselves. Refusing to forgive-- What that really means is not letting ourselves heal. Keeping those wounds open, holding on to our anger, our hate, our bitterness. We use that pain as an armor around our hearts and it feels like protection, but that armor keeps out all the good things, too."

Ptonomy has everyone's undivided attention.

"But that's the why," Ptonomy continues. "As for the how? It's a lot like forgiving yourself. Start by accepting what happened. Process the emotions, the experience. Figure out what you got from it, good and bad. Think about why the other person did it, their perspective. If there's something you need to learn, learn it. Then let the rest go. Let yourself heal and allow yourself to feel all the good things that couldn't get past that armor. You're having trouble forgiving Amy, so where are you stuck?"

"Um," Divad starts. Where is he stuck? Has he even accepted what happened to them?

"I don't think you're in denial," Ptonomy says. "You're aware of what happened to you, despite your attempts to emotionally distance yourself. How about processing? Have you talked about what you went through with anyone?"

Divad shakes his head. There was no one he could talk to. He didn't need to tell his brothers, they were there with him, and then David couldn't hear him and Dvd didn't want to. And no one else even knew he was there.

"Well, you have plenty of people who know you're here now," Ptonomy says, warmly. "You can talk to any of us about anything you want. We want to get to know you, Divad. All of you. And no one's ever going to forget you exist again. People all over the world know about you now. You're not going to be forgotten, okay?"

Divad didn't expect those words to affect him so much. He's not going to be forgotten. But they bring sudden tears to their eyes. Divad wipes them away. It's not as overwhelming to be upset in their body as it was before. He's not sure if he's getting used to it again or if all this therapy is working.

"Probably both," Ptonomy says. "That's why it's so important for each of you to be in your system's body for your sessions. It's going to help us get through all that pain your body has been holding on to."

That makes sense. But Divad can't stop thinking about-- Being able to talk to someone. Not just trade angry barbs in a desperate attempt to stay sane. He's not sure if he's ready yet, he's already feeling-- Like their body needs to rest. Like he needs to rest, to let-- All of this settle. 

"I think that's a good idea," Ptonomy says. "We'll have dinner and make it an early night. But I think before we do that, you should finish talking to your brothers."

Divad takes a deep breath and wipes at their eyes again. "Yeah, um." He turns to his brothers. "I'm sorry. Again. For--" He takes another steadying breath. "David, I'm sorry for yelling at you, for being-- Cruel to you. And Dvd-- I'm sorry for turning my back on our system. For not sharing. We're supposed to share. We're supposed to be there for each other, not-- Making things worse. I'm sorry for making things worse."

"I'm not ready to forgive you," Dvd says, plainly. "But-- I'll think about it."

Divad looks to David. David looks torn, unsurprisingly. "I'm not ready either," he admits. "I know we have this-- Entire history. But--"

"I know," Divad says. "It's okay that you can't remember. It's okay. I just-- Want to apologize for the things I did that you can remember. Telling you-- Not to hope for anything. That you're not a good person and don't deserve love. That you’re a useless piece of shit--"

"That's-- Really enough," David says, holding up a hand. 'I didn't need all those reminders.'

"Yeah," Divad admits, wincing. How does David apologize so much? It's agonizing. "Yeah. That was-- Those were not good ideas, man. I'm really sorry." He wishes he could take them all back, but-- They just have to work with what they have, even if what they have includes Divad really screwing the pooch right out of the gate. 

Shit. He's supposed to be giving David less pain, not more. But Ptonomy said to give his brothers time to process how they felt. So he has to do that. But he doesn't want David to think about the cruel things he said. He shouldn't have said them again. 

"I'm sorry for saying those things again," Divad tries. Maybe-- He's learned that to get rid of bad ideas there has to be something good to replace them. So maybe-- "I only said them because I was angry. But I'm not angry now, so-- I want you to hope for-- Everything and-- You're a really good person and you deserve-- All the love from everybody and-- You're not useless, you're-- Really useful. Helpful? Good at doing things."

David smiles at that, amused. "Thank you," he says, and-- Now he has less pain. He feels better. And Divad feels better, too.


	75. Day 10: You are not that lamp.

Divad is still the one in their body when Oliver stops relaying for dinner.

It's okay. It's only fair. David got breakfast, Dvd got lunch, so Divad gets dinner. And it's been a long, exhausting day, but-- David's holding on. He's okay. Lenny did a great job. She was right about not doing any more possession therapy today. It's not just David that needs to get better, and he's as much a part of Divad and Dvd and even Syd's therapy as they're a part of his. He can't work himself into the ground if he's going to be there for them.

And really, after the day he's had, David's needs to just-- Exist for a while, without doing anything. So it's okay that he's-- Invisible and inaudible. He still has his brothers, and Oliver can hear him even when he's not relaying.

But his brothers aren't up for much conversation either. They're both quiet, thoughtful in a way he's never seen them be. Dvd's even made a mental projection of their system notebook to study, since Divad has the real one. They're thinking over their foundation ideas, thinking over their session work, and all of that is-- Exactly what they need to do. David wants them to do it.

Dvd glances at him, amused. So does Divad.

"Yeah, yeah," David says, waving them off. He might not be able to guard his thoughts, but-- Just pretend not to hear him for a while, okay?

"Okay," Dvd says, and turns back to the notebook. 

Hmph.

Anyway. Where was he?

They're all together around the table, as usual, whether they can eat or not. So David takes the opportunity to watch everyone unobserved. Being this way, there's no expectations. It's disconcerting, being looked through, being unable to touch, but-- He doesn't feel like a ghost. It's like-- Being a kid and playing hide-and-seek. He remembers playing hide-and-seek with Amy. He liked watching her look for him, he liked-- Being sought. Looking back, it was like-- Proof that he was wanted.

Not that David should have needed proof in the happy childhood of his memories. But now that he knows those memories aren't wholly true, he's starting to notice-- The seams. The inconsistencies. A little boy who always felt completely loved, but needed proof of that love. Farouk didn't start from scratch. Maybe he couldn't. 

David has these moments a lot, when he's not caught up in one thing or another. He used to remember so much. Remembering was how he survived, how he escaped, how he pieced himself back together. In his darkest moments, the love in those memories was all he had to get him through. And he's had a lot of darkest moments.

It's a lot to give up, all that love. But most of the time, all he wants to do is reject every single one of his memories, good and bad. Most of them aren't even his. They're-- Baby David's memories, Divad's memories, even Dvd's. Those memories are how Farouk remade him into what he is now, into Farouk's David. 

David doesn't want to be Farouk's David anymore. He wants to be his own David. He wants to reject everything that he was and start from scratch. But he can't. He can't unmix his cocktail mind. He can't get those real memories back. If he throws out the little has left-- That can't make him stronger. And he has to be strong.

But accepting his memories-- He's not sure he can do that either. He definitely can't accept them as they are. He needs to find-- The seams, the inconsistencies. The evidence that the memories used to belong to the David-that-was, to himself before he was remade. To the little boy who needed proof he was loved because he knew he was a mutant. Because he had a monster in his head making that idyllic countryside into a living nightmare. 

But he’s not that David anymore, the David-that-was. He doesn’t want to go back to being— So broken he had to be a passenger in his own body. David will never be grateful for a single thing Farouk did to him, never ever in a billion years, but— The life he had— 

It doesn’t matter. Farouk only remade him to break him again. There was nothing better about being a hopeless, bewildered junkie who tried to kill himself and ended up in Clockworks for a fifth of his life. There was nothing better about not knowing why he was terrified all the time. There’s nothing better about being tricked into hurting people. 

David needs a moment. He knows the rule is to always stay with someone, but— He needs a moment. He leaves the table and goes over to a loveseat and— Just sits there, breathing. Or going through the motions of breathing, because he’s a mental projection. 

He’s David. He survived. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. He belongs to himself. David is love. There are things he lost that he’ll never get back. But he’s here and he’s not alone. He’s loved and there’s no shame in love. He’s strong enough to heal.

Okay, that’s a little— That’s better. He’s David and he survived and it doesn’t matter how many Davids he’s made of. He doesn’t have to be anybody but himself. 

Whoever that is. 

He slumps back against the loveseat and wonders why he can sit on a chair but his legs go through the coffee table. Being a mutant is weird. Powers are weird. His entire life is absolutely absurd. If it was a movie people would walk out halfway through, shaking their heads, and all the reviews would be about how dark and confusing it was.

He doesn’t feel— Remotely able to stop Farouk for Division 3. He doesn’t see how he ever will be. He knows on paper he’s more powerful than Farouk. He knows that. But he doesn’t feel it. He feels like a victim, not a hero. He feels like his lamp, broken into too many pieces to ever be whole, no matter how much packing tape they use to hold him together. He wants to heal, he’s trying with everything he has to heal. He just doesn’t see how everything he has will ever be enough. 

He sighs. Maybe he’s just afraid. Maybe all of this is just him trying to prepare himself for failure. He looks across the lab at his bed and all he feels is dread. Sharing his body— Their body. His body. Feeling someone else inside him. He wanted to make more progress with his possession trauma, he really— If he was strong he could have kept going. If he was strong he wouldn’t be afraid. If he was strong, he could have done— Something. He could have done something to make it stop. 

He couldn’t. 

No David has ever been able to make it stop, but this David is the most useless of all. And of course he is. Farouk designed this David to fail. That’s what he was made for: to be tortured and to fail. That’s just— A fact. It’s not an idea or a belief, it’s a fact. That’s what he is: a bespoke victim, perfectly tailored to the needs of a monster. 

He doesn’t want to be that. But he is. They need him, but— he’s the weakest link in the chain. He’s what’s going to break first. He always will. He was made to break. 

He hears someone approaching and looks up to see his brothers. Divad is carrying the rocket lamp. He puts it down on the table and—

“Hey!” David protests, reaching out to stop him from picking at the packing tape. But his hand goes right through. And then Dvd pulls him back into the loveseat and holds him there with a firm but friendly arm. 

“So you know what I said to Divad?” Dvd says, as David stares in horror. “I said, if he compares himself to that fucking lamp one more time, I’m gonna smash this one like I smashed the other one. And then Divad — this is how you know he’s the thinker — he said, we should fix it instead.”

Divad has the edge of the tape now, and he’s peeling it away. 

“And then Cary said, fix what?” Dvd continues. “You know how Cary loves fixing things. And Kerry said, that sounds like it’d be really good fine motor therapy for Oliver and Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy.” 

Everyone else comes over and sits down. Cary and Kerry arrive last, with a medical tray and a bunch of supplies. 

“No sitting alone,” Ptonomy chides, but fondly. “That’s why.”

Syd takes the shade and Oliver unscrews the bulb. After the first layer of tape comes off, Divad puts the lamp in the tray and keeps unwinding. David watches in horror as pieces of the ceramic rocket start falling into the tray, as the structural integrity fails and the entire thing collapses into a heap of rubble. 

Were they trying to make the rocket lamp even more of a metaphor for his life? Because they just did. He’s too shocked to cry, but he’s devastated. 

“You are not that lamp,” Dvd tells him, his voice as firm as his grip. “But since we’re stuck with that delusion, we’re gonna roll with it. We’re gonna fix that lamp just like we’re fixing you. Together. And trust me, anyone could do a better job than an escaped mental patient weaning himself off an insane amount of Haldol. Those nurses handed it out like candy.”

“All right,” Cary says, assessing the damage. “Let’s see what we have.”

Kerry pokes at the rubble and makes a face. “They’re sticky. And the paint’s coming off.”

“Packing tape is not a good long-term adhesive,” Cary says, gently chiding in David’s direction. “We’ll get all the ceramic pieces cleaned up, let them dry overnight. We’ll start assembling tomorrow. And this motor simply needs replacing.”

“What about this?” Syd asks, carefully holding out the battered shade. 

Cary takes it, inspects it. “Hm, it’s metal. We’ll flatten it out, sand it, then weld it back together. A fresh coat of paint and it’ll be good as new.”

Good as new? It’s destroyed. He’s destroyed. 

“David says he’s destroyed,” Divad relays. 

“Oh yeah?” Lenny says. She takes the shade from Cary. “Guess he won’t need this, then.”

“Wait,” David starts, reaching for it, but Dvd pulls him back again. 

Lenny puts her hand to her ear, listening. “Hmm, nothing. Oh well, if there’s no David left, we should just throw it out.”

“Lenny!” David protests, and Divad holds up a hand, motioning for her to wait. David scowls at all of them. “You guys are the worst, you know that?”

“If by worst you mean the best, absolutely,” Dvd says. “You know, here me and Divad are, working really hard to stop hurting our system. And what do you do? You hurt our system.”

“I didn’t do anything!” David protests. 

“You’re hurting yourself,” Divad says. “You’re scared so you hurt yourself. Like how when Dvd’s scared he hurts me, and when I’m scared I hurt you. You want us to be strong? You gotta stop hurting our system.”

David wishes they were wrong. 

“David,” Ptonomy says, looking roughly in the right place. “What’s the oldest part of your mantra? The part that’s stayed put no matter what you changed?”

“Um,” David thinks. It would have been— What Cary told him after he got his DID diagnosis. “There are things I lost that I’ll never get back. But I’m here and I’m not alone.”

Divad relays for him.

“Now say that last part again, the very end.”

“I’m not alone?” David says. 

“You’ve been telling yourself to believe those words for days. But you keep thinking you’re doing this on your own. You’re not.”

David sighs. He knows that. He knows it, but—

“You know it, but you don’t believe it,” Divad says, understanding.

“We know how much your lamp means to you,” Ptonomy says, gently. “So we’re going to use that. We’re going to fix your lamp and you’re going to watch us fixing it. So every time you look at this lamp — and I know you look at it a lot — you’re going to remember us making it whole. And maybe that will help you truly accept that you’re not alone.”

David looks at them, gathered around the— The pieces. He feels like the pieces and— God, it’s terrifying to be known so well that they can do this and it will work, he knows it will work and he can’t stop it from working, and this is— 

It’s what Farouk does to him. Which is— Even more terrifying because it shows exactly how— Completely helpless he is to stop him. They’re just— Fucked, inescapably fucked. 

“Shit,” Dvd mutters. And the next thing David knows, he’s on the sofa and Amy’s pulling him close. 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Amy soothes. “Come on, stay with us.”

David clings to her, riding the wave of— Absolute terror that rises up inside him. He needs to stay, he has to, going away doesn’t help him, the things he needs are here, Amy is here. 

There’s a moment where it’s all too much. 

And then it passes. The terror passes and he doesn’t go away. 

“Okay, that was pushing our luck,” Lenny admits. “But hey, still holding that streak!”

“Group effort,” Ptonomy says, annoyed and relieved. 

David sobs against Amy’s hair. No tears, just gasping breaths, the emotion forcing itself out of his chest. He already felt exhausted, now he’s just— 

“Take it easy,” Ptonomy soothes. “You’re okay.”

He’s not okay, nothing’s okay. But the terror’s fading anyway. His body can’t sustain it. It can’t sustain anything. It’s been through so much today, it can’t take any more. He’s not going away, but he thinks— He might— 

“David!” Amy calls, alarmed, and then—

§

David’s eyes roll back and he slumps in Amy’s arms. If she didn’t have an android body, his limp weight might have knocked her over. But she holds him easily as Cary rushes over.

“What happened?” Amy asks, extremely worried. “Did he go away?”

“He’s unconscious,” Oliver says. “He isn't refusing to exist. The rest of him is quite concerned.”

Cary checks David over. His pulse is slow and weak despite his agitation. Cary pulls back David’s eyelids and sees that his eyes are dilated. “Vasovagal syncope,” he decides. “He should wake up in a few minutes. Let’s get him into the recovery position.”

David’s fainted in front of Cary twice before, each time under enormous mental strain. When David first came to Summerland, he was unprepared for the strength of so many mutant minds all under one roof. He passed out right into Cary’s arms. And then when David was negotiating with Clark, Cary’s halo couldn’t protect David from the mutant overpowering him from within. And again Cary found himself crading David in his arms. 

And now here they are again. David’s fainted under an enormous mental strain caused by other mutants. And Cary’s holding David in his arms, feeling responsible for him, feeling guilty for failing to protect his patient, his friend.

Cary cradles David’s head with great care, not wanting any harm to come to him as they lay him onto his side. He places a pillow under David’s head so there’s no pressure on the crown, as they’ve been careful to do for days. Cary feels terrible guilt for the pain that the Davids endure from the crown, for the toll it takes on them. Cary didn’t care that the design would be painful, not when it was destined for Farouk. That monster deserves to suffer. But the pain meant for him only came back around. The crown is just another weapon to Farouk, another way to make the Davids suffer for their abuser’s delight. But they still need it.

Cary hasn’t found a way to make the crown not hurt. He’s afraid of what would happen if he does, if he makes— Suppression of mutant powers easy and morally acceptable. Non-lethal weapons can still be abused, can still destroy the lives they’re meant to save. Cary doesn’t trust the Divisions to use that power responsibly. But that means the Davids pay the price. The best they can do is get the Davids stable as fast as they can, so the crown won’t be necessary. But there’s a price for that, too.

Amy sits on the edge of the sofa and touches David’s hand, his body, soothing him. 

“I’m afraid this is our fault,” Cary admits. “This method of simultaneous therapy— It's very effective. But the physical body has its own limits. Processing all that trauma in such a short time was clearly too much.”

“Okay,” Ptonomy accepts. “We had to do a lot of heavy lifting today to get everyone on the same page. But everyone's on the same page now, right?" He asks the question to Divad and Dvd.

"They are," Oliver relays.

"What set all this off?" Ptonomy asks.

"The possession trauma," Oliver relays. He listens some more. "David-- That is, Divad and Dvd are arguing over how to handle the situation."

"That's our job," Ptonomy tells them. "You two aren't getting out of therapy. That's not an option. You both have a lot of work to do. But as long as you keep doing the work--" He trails off meaningfully.

"They both promise to keep doing the work," Oliver relays.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "Then in the short term, we can prioritize David's possession trauma."

"If he does a full day of that, it's gonna break him," Lenny reminds him. 

"It won't be a full day," Ptonomy says. "Divad and Dvd need their turns and there's plenty of work they can do that will be easier on their body. And David needs time with Syd. But if possession trauma is what's making David that terrified, we have to get him through it."

"Ah, he's waking up," Oliver warns them.

David stirs. Amy's holding his hand, and he grips back weakly.

“Do we need to change our plan for tonight?” Ptonomy asks, quickly.

“No,” Cary says, confident. “But— Be delicate?”

“I can be delicate,” Lenny insists. 

Ptonomy gives her a disbelieving look. But they all go quiet so David can wake up in peace.

"David," Amy calls, softly. "David?"

David's eyes flutter open. He's disoriented, confused, but too exhausted to move. 

"There you are," Amy says, fondly. "Everything's okay. You're okay."

"What happened?" David asks, slurred.

"You almost went away," Amy says. "But we got you back in your body and you did really well. You stayed. But-- Your body's been through a lot today. A little too much. So it passed out. But it's okay now."

"Everything's just fine," Cary assures him. He's found that a confident voice always helps his patients. "But don't try to sit up. You need to lie still, let your body recover."

David gives a weak nod. Amy keeps holding his hand, touching him, helping him ground himself. 

That close call and then the fainting-- That's a one-two punch for the knockout, as far as Cary's concerned. He gives David a reassuring smile and then steps away, gesturing for Ptonomy to join him in the hall.

"I recommend we let David rest," Cary tells him, quietly. "Amy and his brothers can stay with him, and perhaps Lenny. But he's had far too much stress today, physically and mentally. He needs calm and quiet company."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. 

"When he's able to sit up, get him ready for bed and we'll set him up for sleep," Cary continues. "Kerry and I can take care of Oliver first. If you're confident that the, ah, Divad situation is under control?"

"I think we're good for tonight," Ptonomy says. "This gave everyone a scare, including them. We'll get Divad and Dvd working on their anger management tomorrow. But-- I need to know what Oliver heard in David's thoughts. Let me talk to him before you put him out?"

"Of course," Cary says. "I have to say, I'm very impressed by Divad's expertise. His knowledge coupled with his direct control-- If we can help him, he has the potential to transform our understanding of the body and mind."

"You want him for Division 4?" Ptonomy asks.

"How could I resist?" Cary admits. "And he could be an incredible asset to Division 2's pure research. But obviously-- His recovery, all of David's recovery is the priority."

"Just be careful," Ptonomy warns. "I'm very concerned about their whole system's attachment to Farouk. They're constantly struggling against the belief that he knows what's right for them, that they deserve what he does to them."

"Dvd seems to have escaped most of that," Cary offers.

"He has a lot of David's defiance," Ptonomy agrees. "And pretty much all of his self-protection. We're lucky that Dvd's love for David is so strong. You and Kerry-- That was a brave thing you did today. It really helped."

"Would you believe that it really was more for me than them?" Cary asks. "Seeing the values they saw in us-- If I didn't follow them myself--"

"If you need any help with being inside--" Ptonomy offers.

"Thank you," Cary says. "I might, but-- I think this is-- System work, for now."

"Understood," Ptonomy says.

"Do you really think--" Cary starts. "Farouk tortured them horribly. Even with developmental trauma--"

"As you said yourself, David accepted the abuse," Ptonomy says, regretful. "Divad and David each took a share. The fact that David helped Farouk, went back to him again and again, listened to him--"

"David believed he didn't have a choice," Cary defends. 

"He didn't," Ptonomy says. "But it wasn't just Syd and Future Syd making decisions for him. The Davids had the power to stop Farouk, to be rid of the monster once and for all. But some part of them-- Resisted. That resistance expresses itself in a lot of ways, mostly fear and anger, but-- It's attachment."

Cary thinks about the time he went back to stay with his mother, before she died. She was in poor health and Cary wanted to help her, but-- Living in that house, being subjected to her anger-- He felt like a frightened child again, cowed and helpless, even though there was nothing she could do to physically harm him. It took everything he had to walk away from her, and he did it for Kerry's sake, not his own. 

Attachment. A simple word to describe-- The way someone cruel can hold your heart in their hands. 

"Yes," Cary agrees, regretful himself. "That's a very-- Difficult thing to treat."

§

Amy and Lenny keep the Davids company while David rests. Ptonomy talks to Oliver, and Syd cleans up from dinner. Kerry joins Cary in making the final adjustments to the sleep inducers.

"Are we gonna have to wear these, too?" Kerry asks.

"Only if Farouk tries to reach us through our dreams," Cary says. "Thankfully that hasn't happened." Presumably hearing their thoughts every waking moment is enough for him. Cary tries not to shudder, but shudders anyway.

"I wish we could sleep together tonight," Kerry says, wistful. "But maybe tomorrow?"

"Perhaps," Cary says, but without his usual cheer. He can't lie to her about this. He can't be a bad example for the Davids.

"We'll figure it out together," Kerry says, and hugs him. 

Cary holds her back and thinks how grateful he is to have her. Kerry's always been-- The best thing in his life. He's always been willing to sacrifice himself for her well-being. He sheltered her, he comforted her, he took her wounds for her, no matter how much it cost him.

But he can't do any of that anymore. He was changed and-- Now he's something else. He's denied that change for Kerry's sake, but-- That won't work anymore, not now that she needs him to accept it. 

He thinks of Dvd's acceptance of how David has changed. It was very hard for him, terribly painful, but-- What matters is that they're together. Cary knows that no matter how he and Kerry change, what matters is that they're together.

It really does help, having another system around. Maybe-- DID patients often suffer terrible treatment, a double cruelty when their lives are already so harsh. The same with schizophrenics. Oliver's dream was always about helping the people who need help most. If Division 4 becomes a reality-- Cary wants to do everything he can to make sure no one else is treated the way he and David were treated, like they were too broken to be worth saving. 

Everyone is worth saving. Oliver told him that the day he found them. Cary didn't believe him then, because he didn't feel like he was worth being saved himself. But that was someone else's poison in his foundation. It was someone else's delusion, put inside him when he was too young to protect himself. That's his attachment to his abuser, his belief that she was right to hurt him. That's his shame.

The only true antidote to shame is love. The love of others, the love of the self. That's the only answer anyone has found.

§

When David's finally fit to stand, he lets Amy help him get ready for the night. He's so tired, mind and body. He remembers-- Amy standing beside him in the bathroom, teaching him to brush his teeth. Amy pulling on his pajamas. Amy kissing him on the forehead as she tucked him in.

The seams. The inconsistencies. It must have been-- Their mom, doing those things. Or she did when she wasn't too sick. It must have been Mom tucking Baby David in and kissing him goodnight with all her love.

It must not have been a big leap, to make a cocktail out of Mom and Amy. 

A bubble of grief catches in his throat and pops.

"David?" Amy asks, concerned. "Oh, look at you." She takes a tissue and wipes the tears from his face, then she hugs him.

David feels like a fraud, loving her. His love for her isn't even-- It's Divad's love for Amy, it's David's love for Mom, it's-- Another cocktail, another creation. Even this.

But he still loves her with all his heart. Their heart. His-- Cocktail heart. What else can he do? 

Ptonomy and Cary are waiting when they all convene at David's bed. Their bed. Ptonomy gestures for David to lie down, and Amy tucks him in.

"We're gonna keep this really simple," Ptonomy tells them. "Divad's going to help you sleep, just like he's been doing. When you're out, Dvd and Divad will join you. Then Cary will turn this on."

Cary shows him the device. "It's a sleep inducer," he explains. "I already set Oliver up with his, to help his mind sleep with his body. It's an artificial version of the same thing Divad does for you. It will keep your whole system asleep. We'll monitor you and wake you up in the morning, so you’ll get a good night’s sleep without any bad dreams.”

“All that means you’re not going to feel anything different,” Ptonomy assures him. “It’s going to be just like every night. Okay?”

David looks at his brothers. They’re going to be inside him. They need to share, that’s how they work. They all need to be together to heal. 

He’s not going to feel anything different. He’s not going to feel it. And— It's like the dreams. If he doesn’t feel it, if he can’t remember it, it’s like it never happened. The opposite of— Remembering Benny as Lenny. They both remember that so it happened for them. 

“Okay,” he says, but he holds Amy’s hand tightly. 

He wishes he could fall asleep looking at his lamp. But they’re fixing it so— They can fix him. 

He starts to feel— So sleepy. He can’t keep his eyes open. He squeezes Amy’s hand and then he lets his eyes close.


	76. Interlude II: Café serré á la David.

David wakes up screaming. Again. But before he can hurt their body, before his half-asleep mind can do any damage, Amahl is there, holding him.

"You're all right," Amahl soothes, as David gasp and cries in his arms. "Everything's all right. You're safe now. You're safe with Amahl."

Safe. He's safe.

David still can't fully believe that. He's never been safe. The monster's always been there, waiting, watching, listening. It's always been there, either torturing David or waiting for David to recover enough to be worth torturing. In David's nightmares, the nightmares he's had every night for a week, the monster is back and there's nothing David can do to stop him.

But the monster is gone. David's awake and the monster is gone because Amahl got the monster out. The monster's been out of their brain for months, since their seizure and their surgery, but David's mind hasn't been able to catch up to the reality of their body. Every time he wakes up screaming from his nightmares, Amahl is there to hold him, to anchor him in reality. It's a little easier each time to accept that this is happening: that the monster is gone, that Amahl is keeping him safe. That he doesn't have to be afraid anymore.

The nightmares feel so real, but-- This is reality. This is happening. He has to accept that this is happening.

As the terror fades, David eases his grip, but as always Amahl keeps holding him. 

"You must-- Really miss-- Sleeping through the night," David sniffs, his tears soaking into Amahl's pyjamas. 

"A small sacrifice for my favorite patient," Amahl says, warmly. 

"I'm your only patient," David counters. But Amahl's kindness still makes him feel better, even if he doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve any of this, but it's happening to him anyway.

Like he does every time this happens, while he's still in Amahl's embrace, he reaches out for Divad and Dvd. If anything should bring them back, it's his distress. But like every time he tries to find them, he finds nothing. They're still gone. He's still alone in their body.

He still doesn't understand how that's possible, but it's happening to him anyway. A lot of things are happening to him and it doesn't matter if he understands them, it doesn't matter if he wants them, it doesn't matter if he believes in them. They're still happening. By most definitions, that makes them real.

When he's calmed enough, he draws back, and Amahl lets him go. 

"Would you like to talk about it?" Amahl asks, like he always does.

David shakes their head. 

"Do you think you'll be able to get back to sleep?" Amahl asks.

David shakes their head. 

"All right," Amahl says. "I'll make us some coffee. Then we shall begin."

David watches Amahl get up and putter around the lab. It's soothing, watching him just-- Take things in stride. Amahl doesn't get mad at David for waking them both up in the middle of the night. He doesn't try to force David back to sleep, with words or drugs. He just accepts that they're awake and gets the day started. And when David gets tired in the afternoon, when they both get tired because they didn't get enough sleep, they just-- Take a nap together, for as long as they need to. And when David wakes up from the inevitable second nightmare of the day, Amahl is there for him, holding him until he calms, anchoring him to reality again.

Not having Divad and Dvd-- David didn't think he'd ever be able to survive that, to even exist without them. But here he is, existing. Existence is happening to him. 

Amahl brings over the coffee: one tiny cup for himself, full of his usual _café serré_. And one regular cup for David, the exact same coffee but cut with plenty of cream and sugar. David tried one sip of that stuff plain the first night they did this, and it was so black and bitter he couldn't even swallow it. So now Amahl makes _café serré á la David_ , just for him.

"Here you go, my dear," Amahl says, handing him his cup. "Just as you like. Shall we toast? To another productive day."

They clink their cups together. It feels like a promise. David drinks his _café serré á la David_ , and Amahl gives him an approving smile before sipping from his own cup.

Their days begin before dawn, when the world outside and the hospital below are still asleep. Amahl checks on their arms. Amahl doesn't want their arms to have any ugly scars. David hacked them up badly with that broken plate, so they need extra care to heal right. Amahl has them wrapped in some kind of special sheeting, and even though David assumed there were stitches underneath the bandages when he woke up, Amahl used glue to close the wounds. David's never heard of that, but Amahl assured him that it's the best treatment. 

Amahl has often assured him that he will only ever give David the best possible treatment, because David has suffered so much mistreatment from his misdiagnosis. David can't say he minds the assurances.

Amahl unwraps the sheeting. The wounds are still vivid, but no longer inflamed.

"Excellent," Amahl says. "You're doing very well, David. Your arms are healing very well. I think they're ready for the next treatment." At David's questioning look, he continues. "Remember how we spoke about healing? First the bleeding must be stopped. The wounds must be quickly sealed to prevent infection. Then the body begins to rebuild, to pull the wounds closed. The glue, the sheeting, these are ways I helped your body do these things. Now I shall help it heal without the terrible scars you fear."

"How?"

"Like this," Amahl says, and takes one arm in his hands. He places his thumbs on either side of the scar and--

"Ow!" David startles back, but Amahl holds him. 

"There is only a little pain," Amahl says, a gentle chiding. "The skin must be stretched to align the fibers of your wound. Otherwise they will clump up, become unhealthy." He pauses. "May I continue?"

David reluctantly nods. He braces himself, hissing through his clenched teeth as Amahl stretches the wounds. 

It feels like it takes forever. 

When it's done, and Amahl takes the first arm and massages it. David winces, sore, but-- Then it starts to feel better. 

"We'll do this every morning," Amahl tells him. "Remodel the wounds, and then massage the tissue. All right?"

David nods. Amahl is always explaining things, asking for his permission, which feels-- Largely unnecessary, when David's obviously mentally incapable of consenting to anything and wouldn't know a right decision if it came up and bit him. But-- It's comforting. Amahl knows what's best for him and wants the best for him. He wants David to be whole. He wants him to heal so they can help the whole world heal. David still doesn’t understand all that, but it’s happening anyway. 

When he's done, Amahl wraps their arms again. "Our bodies, David. They are messy, imperfect. We must teach them to be better. We must teach them to heal the right way. If we don't, they become like scar tissue: disorganized, inflexible, ugly. It was once thought inevitable that the aging of our bodies would bring the loss of our minds. But we know now that there is no truth to this. There is much we can recover from, many diseases that will cease to afflict us, once we know their proper treatment."

David lets most of that flow past him. Amahl can be very grandiose but it's mostly beyond David's comprehension. He couldn't even make it through high school before Divad had to take charge full-time, and even before that it wasn't as though they were the best student. It was hard to keep up when there was a monster in their head, hurting them and scaring them and making them see and hear things that weren't there. The only thing that saved their grades was David being able to read minds. 

And now he can't. He still can't hear any thoughts from anyone. He can't make things happen by thinking. He's powerless and alone and-- If it wasn't for Amahl-- David wouldn't care if their wounds healed the right way. He wouldn't care what happened to their body because it wouldn't be their body anymore, it wouldn't be anyone's body because--

"David," Amahl says, pulling David out of his dark thoughts. "Come. Let us get dressed and have breakfast."

They each have their turn in the lab's bathroom, and by the time they're done, a breakfast tray has been left just inside the door by Amahl's mysterious assistant. David's never seen them, he only knows they exist because they bring things and take them away.

David hasn't actually seen anyone but Amahl since he woke up. He doesn't count the people in the street below, in the bustling city around them. Apparently it's part of David's treatment that he must have strictly limited social contact. David doesn't mind, really; it's not like he's eager to explain himself to anyone, to have them gawp at him. And it's unsettling not being able to hear people's thoughts. He's getting used to it with Amahl, but-- It's unnatural. He had a hard enough time trusting anyone even when he knew what they were thinking.

Usually they weren't thinking anything nice anyway. 

So just being with Amahl is fine. David shouldn't ever need anyone outside of his system, but-- David doesn't have a system anymore, he doesn't have Divad and Dvd. He has Amahl. Amahl is being Divad and Dvd for David, taking care of him, protecting him, keeping him safe, helping him heal. So it's okay, it's okay that David doesn't have a system, that he only has Amahl. It's okay.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. He lifts the cover for his plate.

As with the coffee, David eats what Amahl eats, but _á la David_. Concessions are made for his palate, though Amahl promises those won't be necessary once David's taste buds adapt to the stronger flavors Amahl prefers. David will cease to eat as though he's at the kiddie table, as Amahl says, though fondly enough that the words don't sting. All that sugar isn't good for their body anyway, he knows that. He just never had any reason to care.

So for breakfast, they have _shakshuka_ : eggs in a spicy sauce with even spicier sausage. But _shakshuka á la David_ is mild, and he gets a side of _beghrir_ : a sort of waffley pancake that David can cover with as much syrup as he wants. 

The food isn't made by Amahl's assistant. Amahl's own mother makes it, apparently, delighted to make her own contribution to Amahl's work. But the assistant picks their meals up and brings them over every morning. It's nice, having homemade food. They didn't eat very well in college. Not that it mattered to David because Divad was the one who ate for them. Eating the same things as Amahl feels like when he and Divad and Dvd used to all eat together, sharing their body together. He misses sharing with them. But it's been years since they shared like that. It's been-- 

It's been a long time since he did anything but hang back and watch. And now he has to do all these things again. He has to eat meals and care for their body and listen to Amahl. He has to be tested.

After breakfast the tests begin. There are all kinds of them. Scans are taken of their body and their brain. Samples are taken: of blood, urine, other things; even, for one very painful test, the fluid from their spine. Amahl said they only have to do that one once a week, which is a relief. There's physical tests to measure David's recovery and physical therapy to strengthen their muscles after their long coma. But most of the day is mental tests. Question after question, logic and memory and history and language and-- And David can't cheat, he can't listen for the right answers. It's humiliating how little he truly knows. Amahl needs to know everything about their mind's current state before the treatment truly begins, but it's torturous despite Amahl's kindness and understanding. It feels like a punishment for every time that they cheated instead of learning on their own. It feels like a punishment for giving up and letting Divad be in charge and learning everything for them for years. He feels like a failure.

So of course David breaks down. Of course Amahl has to bring all their work to a halt so he can comfort David again. Not just after the nightmares, but two or three times a day, because it's all too much but he can't even admit why. He can't tell Amahl that he had a system. He can't tell Amahl he had powers. Amahl is only doing all this because of the monster he found in their head. If Amahl knows the rest-- 

David doesn't deserve any of this. He doesn't deserve kindness and homemade food and wound massages. He doesn't deserve treatment. He doesn't deserve--

"David," Amahl says, concerned. "You're tired. Come, let's lie down."

David lies down. He does what Amahl says. It's a lot like doing what Divad and Dvd said. He doesn't know how to make decisions anyway. When he tries he ruins everything. 

He goes to sleep and wakes up screaming. But before he can hurt their body, before his half-asleep mind can do any damage, Amahl is there, holding him.

§

David's quiet over dinner, worn out as usual by Amahl's tests and his own incessant emotional breakdowns. The lemony roasted chicken is strongly spiced, but it's not hot-spicy and David is getting used to the flavors like Amahl said he would. And it's not so bad with plenty of couscous. So there's no need for an _á la David_ version. He's simply eating what Amahl eats, the way he should. At least he can do that right.

"You're doing very well, David," Amahl says, taking his hand and holding it. "I know all of this is a challenge for you. The monster hurt you very badly, damaged your brain, your mind. You must not judge yourself harshly for what you could not control."

David looks away, ashamed. He's a failure, a liar. All he can do is wonder when Amahl's going to realize that he's useless and throw him out. Maybe throw him in jail because he's a fraud, and them make him pay back however much all of this has already cost. The surgery, months of treatment, a whole floor of a hospital-- Dad and Amy will never be able to pay all that back. They'll hate him even more when they realize the wrong David put them in debt for the rest of their lives.

"You're very important to me, David," Amahl says. "You are my key, remember? You must stay alive for me."

"I am," David says, though he's miserable about it. He's miserable because Amahl thinks David is stupid because he has brain damage, but David is stupid because he's stupid. There's nothing wrong with him, nothing that needs to be cured. He isn't suicidal because he's sick. He just doesn't deserve to live.

Dvd and Divad aren't coming back. He tried to wait for them, he tried, but they aren't coming back. That's happening and he has to accept it. That's reality and he has to accept it.

And if they're never coming back-- He knows what he has to do.

But he never has any time alone. Amahl is always right there and David never has a chance to-- If he just had some time alone, he could do the job right this time. It's a hospital, there should be-- Plenty of options, ways he could-- Do it quick enough, do enough damage that Amahl won't be able to save him like he did before. He's been looking but there's nothing. The razor in the bathroom couldn't kill a mouse. The window won't open and it's too thick to break. There's no poison he can swallow. Everything else-- It would take too long, or it would be too easy to save him. And he can't-- He can't risk failing again. He needs to do it right, he needs to do _something_ right.

He can't do this anymore. All these tests and-- All this existing. All this being alive, being-- It's not for him. It would be okay for Divad and Dvd but not David. David isn't supposed to be in charge. David isn't supposed to heal. But Amahl wants him to heal, he needs him to heal. But only because he thinks David is what he needs. David isn't what he needs, he isn't what anyone needs. Amahl has to know that. He has to know, David keeps waiting for him to look at a scan or a test result and _know_ , but-- Amahl just keeps going, like he can't see the truth staring him in the face, like he can't see that David is just-- _Nothing_ , he's _nothing_ , so why can't he _be nothing_?

"Please, talk to me, David," Amahl asks, sadly. "I can see you're in great pain. You promised to open your mind to me. How can I make you whole if you keep me out? Let me in, David, please."

David has talked all day. He's cried in Amahl's arms. He's eaten Amahl's food. He's answered Amahl's questions. He's done everything Amahl asked. But he can't do anything more than that. He can't.

Maybe not saying anything will be enough. If he can't be Amahl's key, if he can't-- Open his mind, then-- Maybe Amahl will let him die.

Amahl sighs, frustrated. He rubs his jaw like he's trying to solve a very difficult puzzle. And then he has an idea.

"David, my dear, have I ever told you about my wife?"

David blinks at him. He had no idea Amahl was married. Usually that's the kind of detail he overhears so he doesn't need to ask. Now he can't overhear. But-- Of course he wouldn't need to ask because Amahl wears a wedding ring. He's always worn a wedding ring. David just wasn't paying attention. Dvd would be disappointed in him, if Dvd wasn't gone.

"She's a therapist," Amahl continues. "A very special therapist. She treats patients who suffered terrible trauma, who find it too painful to speak."

That's odd enough that David has to ask. "Her patients don't talk?"

"They do with her help," Amahl says. "I think she would be able to help you."

David seriously doubts that. Trusting Amahl is hard enough, and he got the monster out. David shakes his head, refusing. "I haven't had good luck with therapists."

"They all believed you were schizophrenic," Amahl points out. "She would not be the same. Would you believe-- With her, you wouldn't need to say a single word for her to understand you?"

David gives Amahl an extremely skeptical look.

Amahl laughs. "Ah, there is still a spark," he says, and gives David a friendly slap on the back, then rubs where he slapped, soothing. "She has dedicated her life to helping people, just as I have." Then he leans in. "But I will tell you a secret. Because I trust you, David. You are good at keeping secrets, yes?"

David just gives him a curious look.

"Yes," Amahl says, answering his own question. "My wife is-- Special. She has an ability. Tell me, David, have you ever heard of-- Mutants?"

David goes absolutely still. 

"No," he lies.

"Mutants are people just like you and me," Amahl explains. "But there is something very different about them. They have strange mutations in their bodies that give them-- Wondrous powers. Every mutant is unique, but there are-- Patterns. The ability to heal from any wound. The ability to create fire through sheer force of will. The ability to-- Hear the thoughts of others."

David doesn't even dare to breathe.

"Such mutations are rare," Amahl continues. "So they are poorly understood. And people fear what they do not understand. But my wife-- Her dream is to one day make the world understand, for the whole world to accept and welcome mutants like herself. But that is a difficult dream to achieve. So she uses her abilities to help those that need the most help. People like you, whose pain chokes them like a noose." He gives David a curious look. "Are you afraid to meet her?"

"No," David says, hurriedly. "No, I'm just-- It sounds--"

"Strange?" Amahl offers. "Unlikely? Perhaps-- Disturbing?"

The opposite. 

If Amahl's wife is a mutant like him, if she can read minds like him-- David isn't sure if he wants that more than anything, or if he's terrified of what she'll discover. He's not supposed to let anyone know they're a mutant. They couldn't even tell Amy. But-- They never met another mutant. Surely it's safe to tell another mutant. Surely-- If Amahl is married to a mutant, if she trusts him-- Surely it's safe for Amahl to know, too.

Maybe she can help him figure out what happened to his powers. 

David wants to tell Amahl things. Amahl has been so kind to him, taken care of him, tried to help him. David wants to open up to him. But he's right, the pain is-- It's a noose, choking him. He can't get past it on his own.

"I'd like to meet her," David says, because he can say that much. "Um, what's her name?"

"Doctor Farouk," Amahl says, then laughs. "But that is confusing. Doctor Melanie Farouk. You can call her Melanie, like you call me Amahl."

"Melanie," David echoes. Another mutant like him. Another mind reader like him. He's not alone. He's actually not alone. Not that he's been alone with Amahl, but-- Amahl is a doctor. A compassionate, caring doctor, but-- He's a doctor. Melanie is a mutant like him. Maybe she can even help him find Divad and Dvd. 

Melanie. He wants to meet her. He _wants._ For days he's done everything Amahl wanted, but-- It wasn't what he wanted. He wants to help Amahl, to help him with his dream, but he needs more than that. Meeting Melanie-- That's something he can stay alive for.


	77. Interlude II: She considers herself a surgeon of the mind.

Melanie presses the button for the top floor and waits as the hospital elevator doors slide shut. The moment they seal, the busy sounds of the hospital lobby cut off, sealing her in silence. But there’s no silence in her mind.

Hospitals have never been an easy place for her to be. So many minds in so much pain, so much life and death. If she lets herself, she can hear it all at once: a cacophony of grief and sorrow, of joy and relief, sullen resentment and cautious hope. There've been times in her life when she’s almost lost herself, unable to her hear own thoughts inside a head filled with other people’s thoughts. But she’s long since learned to protect her mind, to help herself so she can give others the help they need. As the elevator climbs, she dials down all the other voices, tuning them out until she can only hear one voice: her own.

She breathes out. The elevator stops and the doors open. She walks through the short hallway and swipes her badge to enter the private lab that takes up the whole floor.

It’s early, but Amahl is already awake and so is his patient. She hears their thoughts before she hears their voices. She hears Amahl’s relief at her arrival as he hears her footsteps and the wheels of her suitcase. She hears his love for her, old and familiar. She hears David.

She’s deeply familiar with David Haller, having read his case history more than once. He’s been Amahl’s obsession for months, this boy with a monster in his head, and she's intrigued herself. Such a tragic case: a troubled life made many times worse by misdiagnosis. Melanie knows all too well how destructive such criminal malpractice can be, and how commonplace it is. Without the ability to hear the thoughts of their patients, even the best diagnostician can be left fumbling in the dark, hoping to find part of the story. 

Melanie's gift eliminates that ambiguity. Just as Amahl is a surgeon of the body, she considers herself a surgeon of the mind. She's treated patients all over the world, but she could do so much more if she wasn't forced to hide her truth behind claims of 'deep empathy' and 'microexpressions.' She could do so much more if the world understood and accepted mutants. 

She opens the door to the main room, and Amahl rises from the table to greet her.

"Melanie," he says, his warm thoughts like a caress even before their bodies touch. She hasn't seen him in over a week, since he devoted himself fully to David. Even though it's usually her work that takes her away from him, she hates to be without him, and she knows he hates to be without her, so they always deeply treasure the time they have together.

Working together to help David-- Melanie would have wanted to help David anyway, but the opportunity to stay with her husband, to be with him every waking and sleeping moment for however long this takes-- She couldn't pack her suitcase fast enough.

They kiss, then rest their foreheads together, soaking in each other's presence. The certainty of his love for her feeds her love for him, and their minds soak in that love like it's a hot bath, soothing, blissful.

But they can't stay in that bath forever. They have work to do.

Melanie breaks away and looks at David. He's still sitting, eyes cast down while he fidgets with nervous uncertainty. The remains of their breakfast are on the table. Melanie had her usual quick breakfast already, but she's looking forward to Amahl's mother's home cooking. Travelling the world gave her a broad palette, but those spices taste like home. 

She sits down next to David. "Hello," she greets. "My name is Doctor Melanie Farouk. But you can call me Melanie."

David finally looks at her. His eyes are expressive, haunted, and their vulnerability makes him look even younger than he is. She feels anxious hope coming off him in powerful waves. He's locked down, verbally and mentally; he's in so much terrible pain.

"Um," David starts. "I'm David."

"It's good to meet you, David," Melanie says, gently drawing him out. "I'm hoping we can do great things together." She holds out her hand, and he looks at it before cautiously reaching out to take it. She notes the protective wrap around his forearms but doesn't let her eyes linger.

Amahl's had his hands full keeping David alive while he established David's physical and mental baselines. She can see why he brought her in. He probably should have brought her in sooner, but-- She knows how stubborn and proud he can be. He wanted to be able to fix David all on his own. But just looking at David, she knows his suffering is too great for one person to fix, even someone as brilliant as her husband.

"I know Amahl has told you about my gift," Melanie continues. "That gift is going to--"

She's interrupted by a burst of urgent thoughts. 'Like me? Is she really like me? It's not safe, Mom and Dad said it's not safe but if she's like me maybe it's safe, maybe I don't have to be alone anymore, I can be-- She's a mutant, another mutant, like me, she's like me--'

"Amahl?" Melanie calls. 

"Yes, my dear?" Amahl says, returning to his chair. "What's wrong?"

"Is there something about David you forgot to tell me?" Melanie asks, wryly.

But Amahl is genuinely confused. "I sent you all his results." 'Did I miss something?' he thinks.

David looks between them, also confused. 'Did I do something wrong?' he wonders, and immediately starts blaming himself.

"You didn't do anything wrong, David," Melanie assures him.

David startles, wide-eyed. 'You heard that?' he thinks.

"I did," Melanie says. 'And can you hear this?' she thinks, assuming that if David is another mind reader, he'll hear it.

But David doesn't respond. 

'Can you hear this?' she tries again, sending this time. 

David startles again. He stares at her in stunned amazement. 

"I'm going to count to ten," Melanie tells him. "Tell me which numbers you hear."

Melanie counts off in her thoughts, only sending him the even numbers. If he's a telepath, he should be able to hear all the numbers. If not--

"Um, I heard-- two, four, six, eight, ten," David says. "You're a mutant, you're really--" He tears up, overwhelmed. 'I'm not alone. I'm not alone.' 

In his distress, he automatically turns to Amahl, and Amahl takes him in his arms, holds him, soothes him. Their movements are so natural. David's only been awake for a week, but they're already like-- Father and son. 

Melanie and Amahl never had children of their own. They were always too busy saving the world to start a family. But seeing David in Amahl's arms, the trust and comfort shared by her husband and this wounded young man-- It rouses her maternal instincts. And if David is a mutant--

It's clear that David needs Amahl's comfort for them to be able to continue. Melanie takes the moment to reach into her suitcase and pull out her tablet. She flips through the test results Amahl sent. A full physiological, neurological, psychological, and genetic profile. Everything there is to know about how David Haller works, everything that can be scanned or tested or analyzed. David Haller is an open book to Amahl, and Amahl has studied him intensely.

She finds the genetic profile. She reads it, then reads it again.

No mutant genetic markers found. David's not a mutant, not by any criteria they can identify. It's one of their secrets that Amahl has amassed a catalog of genetic markers that indicate mutant abilities, even latent ones. The information is deeply sensitive, and in the wrong hands it could be used to identify and capture mutants across the world. Amahl uses it to check if any of his patients are mutants, and if they are he gets them to Melanie so she can help them.

'David thinks he's a mutant,' Melanie sends to Amahl. 'But he isn't one, not according to your tests.'

'We'll run them again,' Amahl thinks, trusting that she'll hear him.

§

When David calms, Amahl brings him to the sofa and wraps him in a blanket. He sits with David and keeps a comforting arm around him, holds his hand. David is terribly fragile; Melanie knows from the information Amahl sent her that he's prone to breakdowns, that his condition can make progress slow. Like most trauma survivors, what helps David is to feel safe and cared for, but those things can be very difficult for survivors to accept. It's a testament to Amahl's dedication and compassion that David feels safe with him, trusts him as much as he does.

"You're safe with us, David," Amahl soothes. "You're our favorite patient. Nothing you say or do will ever change that."

David nods, but-- Even with all of Amahl's assurances, verbal and physical, David's still deeply anxious. 

"I already heard what you thought," Melanie says, as gently as she can. "But I think it would help you if you said it aloud."

David looks at her, his eyes full of hope and fear and so much feeling. He closes them, preparing himself, then looks at her, working up all his courage. 'She's a mutant. She's a mutant. She's a mutant.' "I'm a mutant," he says, in a rush.

"That's wonderful," Amahl rewards, rubbing David's back, squeezing his hand. He smiles, and David gives a nervous smile back. 

David looks at Melanie. "I've never-- I never told that to anyone before, ever." The words are coming out easier now. "It wasn't safe. It's never been safe, never--" He's nearly overcome again, but he holds Amahl's hand tightly, drawing strength.

"How long have you known?" Melanie asks.

"Forever," David says. "My parents-- I was really young when I started using my powers. I could--" He hesitates again.

"Hear thoughts?" Melanie prompts.

David nods. "Not just that. I could do-- Almost anything." He musters a proud smile, but it quickly fades. "But-- It wasn't safe. Using my powers. If anyone found out--" He's upset again, but it's an old pain. "I couldn't even tell my sister."

"Your sister isn't a mutant?" Melanie asks. "Your parents? No one else in your family?"

David shakes his head. "Just me." 'Us,' he thinks. 'No, don't-- Don't think about-- She's a mutant, but--'

"Us?" Melanie prompts.

David looks away, guilty, afraid. He's trying very hard not to think.

"David, are you protecting someone?" Melanie asks. David genuinely believes Melanie is the first other mutant he's met. David's never had any close friends, not as far as his personal history revealed. So who is he protecting? 

David's still trying not to think. But Melanie knows that won't work. The harder someone tries to consciously avoid a thought, the more the thought asserts itself. And so Melanie simply waits and listens.

'Maybe she can help,' David thinks, struggling. 'If she can find them-- If she can get them back-- I won't have to be in charge anymore-- They could help-- Divad-- Amahl would-- It would be better if I was-- I already hurt our body-- Whatever Amahl needs me for-- I'm just going to ruin it. Divad wouldn't ruin it.'

Our body. Melanie's heard that kind of thinking before, in DID patients who are co-conscious. But she doesn't hear any other minds in David's head. 

David doesn't just think he's a mutant. He thinks he has DID. But neither is true, not as far as they can tell. They're going to need to run more tests, but-- Melanie's very concerned. They shouldn't lie to David, but telling him the truth about such enormous delusions-- They need to tread very carefully.

"Who is Divad, David?" Melanie asks.

David looks caught, but visibly surrenders. "He's-- I'm--" He tries, but this is clearly even more difficult than admitting he's a mutant. "The monster--" The pain in his eyes-- Melanie's only seen pain like that in the worst cases, in survivors of unspeakable abuse. 

"What did the monster do, David?" Melanie asks, gently. Amahl made some guesses, based on David's history. But they're just guesses. Only David can tell them the truth, or the truth as he knows it.

David shakes his head, unable to speak of whatever terrible things he suffered. They're so bad he can't even bear to think about them. But he answers as best he can.

"Broke me," David admits, his voice and body trembling. "Over and-- Over and-- I couldn't-- Survive. On my own. So I made them. Divad and-- Dvd. To protect me. They're-- Stress responses. That's what the books said. To protect me. But--" He falters, in great distress. "They're gone. I don't know how. They're not supposed to-- And I don't know if-- If the monster, or--" He looks desperately at Melanie. "Please, you have to-- You have to help me find them. I keep looking for them but I can't find them."

"Okay," Melanie soothes. "How about we run some more tests, see what we can find?"

David sniffs. "Okay."

§

They start the tests. David tenses but complies as Amahl takes his blood. While they let the gene sequencer do its work, they set David up for the MRI. His stripey socked feet shift restlessly, but that's the only part of him that can move. He's strapped firmly to the MRI bed so he won't hurt himself or affect the scans. She can hear how anxious he is about the tests.

"David, we'll be just on the other side of the glass," Melanie tells him. 

"That's right," Amahl adds. He rests a reassuring hand on David's leg. "If you need anything at all, all you have to do is ask. But don't speak aloud. Just listen and speak with your mind. Melanie will be able to hear everything you think."

"Okay," David says, and then closes his mouth firmly. 'Okay,' he thinks.

"Very good," Amahl says, rewarding David with a squeeze and a rub. "When we're done, we'll have a little treat. Makrout. Have you ever had them, David? They're fruit cookies. Usually they're filled with dates, but my mother made _makrout á la David_. They're filled with cherries. Your favorite, yes?"

'Cherries,' David thinks. 'Mom used to make cherry pies. Dad would bring back a big bag of cherries from the fruit stand between work and home, and we'd help her cut the cherries in half and remove the pits. We'd sneak so many cherries-- If Dad didn't bring such a huge bag, there wouldn't be enough left for the pie.'

It's the calmest, most coherent thought David's had since her arrival. Melanie's startled by it, and starts to wonder if keeping David away from his family is a good idea after all. But then David flinches and his thoughts change.

'Mom-- We couldn't save her. And Dad and Amy-- We know what they think about us, about me. If Melanie can't get Divad back-- I'm the wrong David. I'm wrong I'm wrong I'm wrong--'

"Shh," Amahl hushes. He pulls a kerchief from his pocket and dries David's eyes, then rests his hand over David's heart. "You're safe with Amahl, remember? You're always safe with Amahl." 

"I'm safe with Amahl," David echoes, aloud. Then he tries again. 'I'm safe with Amahl.'

"Very good," Amahl says again. "If you're scared, just remember: I'm right here. Right here." He keeps a steady press against David's chest until David calms. But when he takes his hand away, David lets out a soft protest.

Amahl considers him. "Hmm. David-- If you promise to keep very still in the machine--" He frees David's right hand from the straps and brings it to rest over his heart, just where Amahl had pressed. "Just keep thinking those words. You're safe with Amahl."

'I'm safe with Amahl,' David chants to himself. 'I'm safe with Amahl, I'm safe with Amahl.'

"Perfect, my dear," Amahl says, pleased. "Absolutely perfect."

§

It's not easy to prove that someone doesn't have dissociative identity disorder. Usually Melanie is asked to do the opposite: to confirm that the bouts of dissociative amnesia and other confusions a patient is suffering are indeed caused by the presence of multiple minds in one body. She can speak to each mind individually, help them understand what's happening to them, coax their system towards healthy multiplicity.

She's not the only way to confirm the presence of multiple minds. Scans can be done to show unique brainwaves for each identity. But the scan of David's mind only shows David, just like all the scans before it.

When the tests are over, they bundle David up again and sit him down with a paper plateful of _makrout á la David_. It's not safe to leave him alone for long, but the cookies should be enough of a sedating distraction for Amahl and Melanie to speak in private.

'I've never seen a case like this before,' Melanie admits to Amahl. Telepathy is safer than speaking in such a close environment, even from a room over. 'Most people don't even know mutants exist, much less believe they're mutants when they're not. And David does seem to have had experience with genuine telepathy. He was surprised that he could hear me in his thoughts, but he was relieved, not disturbed.'

'He believes he is a mutant, but he’s human,' Amahl thinks. 'He believes he has multiple identities, but he has only one.' He gives her a wry look. 'Quite an unusual patient.'

Melanie huffs. 'So what happened to him? What gave him these delusions?'

'It must have been the monster,' Amahl thinks. 'He claims to have always had powers. But we know he began to manifest schizophrenia symptoms at a very early age.'

'He doesn't have schizophrenia,' Melanie corrects. 

'No,' Amahl says, amused. 'But if the infection was the cause of his apparent schizophrenia--'

Melanie realizes with dawning horror. 'We never figured out what the monster was. What if it was a mutant? A mutant with mental powers. And it used its powers to make David believe he has powers himself.'

Amahl considers this. 'I don't see why not. We've seen cases of mutants separating their minds from their bodies. The monster could have been-- A parasitic mind that burrowed into David's brain when he was a boy, perhaps even a baby.'

'We already know it made him see things, hear things,' Melanie thinks. 'What if these alters, Divad and Dvd, were more hallucinations? Or-- Masks the monster wore to manipulate David, to convince him to give up control? The Divad identity seems to have taken control of David's body in the past.'

'A strong hypothesis,' Amahl agrees. 'But I'm concerned. David is very fragile. If we tell him all of this-- He might never recover.'

'I've never had a patient who didn't want me to tell him he's normal,' Melanie thinks, wryly. 'Aside from the trauma he's endured, David is-- Normal.'

'Which makes him the perfect research subject,' Amahl admits.

'Maybe that can help us,' Melanie thinks. 'If he's been dependent on these false identities-- I'm sure you couldn't miss that he's transferred some of that dependence onto you.'

'I assumed the cause was his estrangement from his family. Should we discourage it?'

'Absolutely not,' Melanie insists. 'You might be the only thing keeping him alive. It's not the normal way to handle these things, but-- David's situation is one of a kind. If we encourage that transference, help him feel like he belongs, help him to-- Accept his singularity-- We can make him strong enough to reject the monster's delusions.'

'A delicate endeavor,' Amahl says. 'Will you help me?'

'Of course, my darling,' Melanie says, and takes his hands. 'We help those who need the most help. And I can't think of anyone who needs help more than David Haller.'


	78. Interlude II: They were part of the monster, too.

A delicate endeavor. That's an understatement if Melanie ever heard one.

Over the years, she's helped a lot of people in pain. And no matter what the sickness or disease or condition, two things have always been essential to their recovery: knowledge and compassion. Without the truth, there can be no goal for recovery. Without compassion, without love and support, that goal can't be achieved.

There is no question that David's recovery will be a long and difficult one. Amahl's treatment will, with luck, do much to make it shorter and easier. But they can't help him heal if he's still putting all his energy into hurting himself. Amahl has been keeping him alive, but they need to help David choose to live.

Amahl sits beside David on the sofa and puts a comforting hand on his back, offers him a reassuring smile. David's nervous, but he manages a smile back. They're lucky that David has bonded with Amahl so well. That compassionate bond is exactly what David needs, and with luck-- It might be the very foundation of his recovery. It's unorthodox to say the least. It's usually essential for the health of doctor and patient to keep some distance to their relationship. But Melanie knows all too well that orthodoxy is the enemy of progress, and everything about this situation tells her that their bond is essential.

If David had an existing support network, they could use it, try to strengthen it so his friends and family could be the foundation of David's recovery. But he's been intensely self-isolating all his life, and both David's file and his thoughts indicate that his family has rejected him. If it wasn't for Amahl, David would be completely alone.

And Amahl's experiment-- David could be his key, he truly could. She knows Amahl sees great potential in him. If they can get David to truly commit, to dedicate himself to the work-- It might be a blessing in disguise that he's alone, that he has no ties or obligations that might distract him. With luck, he won't just be Amahl's patient, he'll be his partner. He'll embrace Amahl's dream and make it his own.

It's a good dream, so close to her own. The dream of a better world, a world where no one is shamed or punished for their difference. A dream of acceptance. Melanie's always focused on the individual, on making people better one at a time, but Amahl prefers the big picture. He wants to help the whole world get better together, in a-- Positive feedback loop. But he needs someone to be the nucleation point, the example to show everyone what's possible, or as Amahl likes to say, in his grandiose fashion: the model of their salvation.

But none of that will happen if they can't get David to take his first steps on the path to healing. Those first steps are always the hardest. 

"David," Melanie begins, in a soothing tone, "there are two big things we need to talk about. We'll talk about your powers. But first we need to talk about Divad and Dvd, your alters."

"Did you find them?" David asks, desperate with hope.

"I'll show you what we found," Melanie says. "But first-- How about you tell me about them? What are they like? Is it just the two of them? No other alters? Even temporary ones?"

"It's always been just us," David says, and his eyes lose focus as he thinks about them. 'They wouldn't leave. We've been through so much, through everything-- They wouldn't leave me.'

"You're very close?" Melanie prompts, drawing him back. "You speak to each other?"

"We do everything together," David says, then falters. "Or we did, before--" 'Before I ruined it.'

"Let's start from the beginning," Melanie says. "When did you first become aware of them?"

"I was pretty young," David says. "I don't know, maybe-- Four or five? Sometimes it feels like-- They've always been here. But I remember being alone in our body, when it was-- My body."

"But then they appeared?"

David nods. "Something happened. I can't-- Sometimes-- I forget things. Divad and Dvd remember for me. If they were here, they could tell you." 'But they're not. Where are they?'

"What are they like?" Melanie asks. "Are they older, younger? Have you ever seen them?"

"They look like me," David says. "I couldn't see them at first. I can't go into their bedroom. That's where they can see each other. But we learned how to— Mentally project. So I could see them."

"And when you're not projecting?"

"I hear them," David says. "We talk to each other. But most of the time-- When we're sharing our body-- I feel them with me. It's like-- Being held all the time." It's obviously a good memory, from the way it calms him. 

"And their bedroom?" Melanie asks. "What's that?"

David nods. "That's where they go to escape the monster. I can't go there, but-- They can. When it's-- When things are really bad. They don't want to, but--"

An inner world, Melanie realizes. Whoever the mutant was that parasitized David, it knew DID well. "You can't go there with them?"

"The monster--" David starts. He pulls his arms close and looks away. "It won't let me."

"So what do you do?" Melanie asks, softer. "When things are really bad?"

"I go away," David says, still refusing to meet her eyes. "I just-- Go away until it's over. Or I forget. I don't remember forgetting, but-- Divad and Dvd tell me I do."

"You trust them a great deal."

"Of course," David says, finally looking up again. "They keep me safe. They wouldn't lie to me. Sometimes they don't tell me things, but-- They have to, to protect me. If I knew what they knew-- It would hurt me."

"Because of the monster," Melanie says. "What did the monster do to you, David?"

David goes very tense. He shakes his head and pulls his arms closer. He's in such distress that he can't even think about whatever traumas he endured.

"Okay," Melanie says. "We don't have to talk about that now. Tell me more about your alters."

David's tension eases. "They keep me safe," he says again, like a protective mantra. "They protect me."

"How do they protect you?"

"Dvd protects our body and Divad protects our mind. Or-- That's what they're supposed to do."

"They don't anymore?" Melanie asks.

"It's my fault," David says, ashamed. "I'm supposed to stay in charge. The monster-- But--" He takes a shaky breath. "I wasn't strong enough. I was-- Making things worse. I do that a lot, so-- It's better if-- I don't. If I just-- Divad-- He knows what to do. And Dvd-- One of them has to take care of me and--" He wipes his eyes. "They argue all the time. They try to hide it, but--" 'Dvd should have stopped trying to save me and stayed with Divad. Everything is my fault. I made them, I did this to them. It's my fault, it's my fault, it's my fault--' He sobs with distress and his fingers press the wraps around his arms, like he's fighting the urge to rip them off.

"Shh, it's all right," Amahl soothes. "You're safe with Amahl, remember?" He takes one of David's hands and brings it to rest over his heart. "You're safe with Amahl."

Tears streak down David's face, but he struggles for calm. 'I'm safe with Amahl,' he thinks. 'I'm safe with Amahl.'

Amahl holds him as he settles. Melanie's heart breaks for David. His trauma is severe, some of the worst she's ever seen. But-- Before his seizure and the coma, he was in college and an excellent student. There's no way that David did all that when he's been tortured since he was a young child.

"David," Melanie says, when David is calm enough to continue. "You've thought about-- Divad being in charge. What does that mean?"

"Um." David wipes his eyes. "I step back. So I'm not-- In control."

"And Divad takes control?"

"And Dvd," David says. "They used to cover for me a lot. But-- Dvd has to stay with me, so-- Divad has to-- But he knows what's best for us. He's-- He's better at-- Being David. I'm--" 'Nothing. I'm nothing.'

"So he was in charge for college?"

'College,' David thinks, like he'd forgotten. "All our classes-- Divad's missing them. I have to-- He has to--" He looks around the room, as if searching for an answer. 

"It's all right, David," Amahl soothes. "You're sick, in treatment. Everything's been taken care of. You don't have to worry about college."

David slumps with relief. "That's-- Divad-- When he gets back--"

"Of course," Amahl says. "But what's important now is your treatment."

David nods, but-- He still looks worried. 

"David," Melanie begins, carefully. "Are you worried about Divad missing class?"

"Of course," David says, defensively. "I mean-- We have to-- College is important."

"Why is college important?"

"So Divad can stop the monster," David says. "He has to learn so he can-- Stop the monster."

"The monster is gone, my dear," Amahl reminds him. "I removed it myself. I destroyed it. I showed you the scans. It is gone."

'Show him,' Amahl thinks.

Melanie picks up the folder that's beside her on the loveseat. She takes out the scans of before and after David's surgery and puts them on the coffee table. David picks them up with trembling hands.

"See?" Amahl soothes. "The infection is gone. Your mind is cleansed. You are only yourself now."

"Only-- Myself?" David echoes, confused.

"Let me tell you a story," Melanie tells David. "Once upon a time there was a little boy, a very special little boy. But he was cursed. When he was just a baby, something infected him. That infection-- The little boy knew it only as a monster. But it wasn't a monster, it was a mutant."

"A mutant?" David stares. 'Like me?'

Melanie pulls out another piece of paper. "This is the result of your genetic testing. We ran the test again just to be certain, but--"

David puts down the scans and picks up the genetic test results. He reads them, reads them again, then looks at Melanie and Amahl in confusion. "I don't understand."

"You're not a mutant, David," Melanie says, gently. "You're human, just like Amahl."

"But my powers," David protests. "I have powers. I can read minds, I can--" He makes a gesture with his hand, but nothing happens.

"You did experience mutant abilities," Melanie explains. "But they weren't yours. They were the monster's. It tricked you. It deluded you into thinking its powers were your own."

"Why?" David asks, bewildered.

"It's difficult to say," Melanie admits. "But that's the only explanation for how you could experience genuine mutant abilities without having the mutations those abilities require."

"I'm sorry, David," Amahl soothes. "I know your powers were important to you. But they were not yours. They were the monster's."

David shakes his head. "No, this is-- It's impossible. They're my powers."

"Then why did they disappear when the monster was removed?" Melanie counters.

"Maybe-- The surgery?" David tries. "Whatever you took out-- Maybe you took out my powers."

Amahl shakes his head. "Mutant powers cannot be removed. For mutants like Melanie, such powers are written into their genetic code. Every cell in their bodies contains their mutation. Your cells do not contain any such mutations."

Melanie leans forward and takes David's hands. "I'm sure many of the things you saw and heard were real. The powers you experienced were real. But they're not your powers. They never were."

David looks at her desperately. "But-- But-- Dvd and Divad, they have powers, too."

Melanie hesitates. She wishes there was a gentler way to tell David the truth, but-- They've come this far, they have to go the rest of the way.

"Just like mutant powers can't be removed," Melanie begins, "DID identities can't be removed. But Divad and Dvd disappeared with the monster, just like the mutant powers you experienced. Which means-- They were part of the monster, too."

David struggles to process this, but it's too much. All he can do is deny it. "No. No, that's-- You're lying, you're-- " He pulls back from them, stumbles away, retreating. "This is a trick, another one of his tricks." 'It's not real, it's not real, it can't be real.'

Amahl and Melanie stand up and follow after David, but keep their motions slow so they don't set him off. 

"We're not lying, David," Amahl soothes. "We know how hard your life has been. We know the monster did terrible things to you. The life that you lived-- To believe that you had powers and alters for all those years-- But the truth is-- You don't."

"They're gone, David," Melanie soothes. "Your body and mind are your own. The monster, his powers, the alters he tricked you with-- They're all gone."

David bolts past them, yanks at the door, but-- The door is locked. David struggles to force it open, but he can't. He pounds on the glass but it's too thick to break. When Melanie and Amahl get too close, he stumbles away again, desperate for some way to escape. He looks around the room, wild-eyed. But Amahl suicide-proofed the room days ago. There's nothing he could use to break free, to hurt them or himself. He tries to lift the table but it's bolted down. He lifts a chair, but drops it as he cries out in pain and grabs at his still-healing arms.

"Please, David," Amahl begs. "You're hurting yourself."

David isn't listening. He rushes into the bathroom and slams the door shut. Amahl and Melanie chase after him, but as they reach the door there's a horrible crashing sound. 

"The mirror," Amahl breathes, alarmed.

They get the door open just as David picks up a large shard of broken mirror. "Stay back," he warns, holding it out.

Melanie didn't want it to come to this. She hoped that David would accept the truth, or at least begin to. But his mind is a frantic whine of panic, the blind desperation of a cornered animal. They can't talk to him when he's in this state, and they can't let him hurt himself any more than he already has.

Melanie raises her hand and David's hand goes slack. The shard falls from his hand and shatters on the tile. David stares in confusion, and then realization. 

"No, please," he begs, but it's too late. She's already sent a telekinetic blow to his carotid sinus, and the resulting blood pressure drop triggers a faint. David drops like a stone, but Amahl catches him before he can hit the mirror-strewn floor.

"We have to secure him before he wakes up," Melanie says. She helps Amahl carry David back into the room.

"On the bed," Amahl says. "There are restraints."

They lay David down and secure the restraints. His hand is bleeding, cut from punching the mirror and then picking up the broken glass. Melanie raises her hand and the first aid kit flies into it. 

"He'll wake up soon," Melanie warns. "He'll struggle again. We have to take care of his hand."

Amahl takes the tweezers and picks out the tiny fragments of glass, and Melanie dabs away the blood. Once the wounds are clean, Amahl glues them closed and they swaddle David's hand in gauze, binding it so he can't reopen the wounds. 

They finish just as David starts to stir. He groans, hurting and confused, but once he comes back to himself, he struggles, just as she predicted.

"Let me go!" David cries, frantic again. "Please let me go, please, please. This isn't-- It's not real, it's not real, it's a trick, the _monster_ \-- It's a trick, you have to believe me! Please!" He sobs, broken, desperate. "Dvd! _Dvd!_ Divad! Please come back! _Please!_ "

Melanie looks to Amahl, regretful. 

'Let me,' Amahl thinks. Melanie takes a step back to give him room.

"I'm sorry, my dear," Amahl tells David, resting a hand over his heart. "I'm truly sorry. I only want to keep you safe. I can't let you harm yourself again."

'They'll come back,' David thinks, desperate. 'They'll come back and they'll save me, they'll protect me. They'll save me.'

Melanie relays David's thoughts to Amahl, echoing them into his mind. They've worked this way many times before.

"I know you can't allow yourself to believe the truth now," Amahl tells David. "But feel the truth in your heart. They are gone. You are here. Amahl is here, keeping you safe."

"No," David whines, but his protest is weaker. He's tiring himself out, but-- 

Amahl keeps one hand over David's heart, and brings the other up to pet his hair, stroke his cheek. He brushes away the tears. "I would never hurt you," he promises. "I would never let you hurt yourself, and I would never let anyone hurt you. You are safe with Amahl."

David keens with emotional agony, but he's settling. Amahl is settling him. It was a gamble, but-- It looks like the bond that Amahl and David have formed is holding.

As David's panic eases, he breaks into wracking sobs. Amahl sighs, then undoes the upper restraints and pulls David into his arms. David struggles weakly, but Amahl holds him easily. And David is so desperate for comfort, for the only source of comfort he has left. His resistance becomes a desperate clinging as his whole body heaves with despair and grief and terror and-- So much. There's so much emotion pouring out of him, it's overwhelming. Melanie has to dial down her perception of David because his mind is simply too loud.

"There, there," Amahl soothes, as David exhausts himself into a stupor. "It's all right. Everything will be all right."


	79. Day 11: What we had should have been ours.

Syd wakes up to the combined sensation of purring and pinpricks against her arm. She knows that familiar combination, and she opens her eyes to see Matilda resting against her gloved arm, her hand and Matilda's head both resting on the pillow.

Syd doesn't move. She lets it happen. Touch, warmth, soothing discomfort. The sensation of another living, breathing body in contact with her own. She's had a whole year to learn to endure that sensation, to accept it instead of flinching away.

It was a difficult year.

Melanie suggested a therapy animal just a few weeks after David was taken. Syd had gone her whole life without touch before David. She tried to convince herself she could go back to that, that she could turn the need David awoke in her back off. Or if they could just find him, if they could just get him back--

She felt like a junkie herself, craving him. Craving him pressed against her, his bare body against her bare body, sheer skin-on-skin. His mouth, the texture of his lips pursed in a kiss, the press of his teeth as he smiled against her. In the white room, they could lie together for hours, soaking each other up, filling themselves until they drowned the empty ache they felt in their actual bodies.

But David was gone. There was no trace of him, no trail to follow. He was just-- Gone. And Syd _needed_.

So she got Matilda.

She'd never had a pet before, for obvious reasons. As a therapy cat, Matilda was already trained and largely self-sufficient, but there were responsibilities. Food and water and a litter box, the occasional trip to the vet, a scratching post so she didn't wreck the furniture, cat toys. Those were all easy. Syd didn't even have to play with Matilda if she didn't want to, because all the little kids Division 3 conscripted absolutely loved playing with and petting the fluffy, friendly cat.

But Syd didn't get Matilda for the kids. She got Matilda for her haphephobia. So one evening, Syd put out food to lure Matilda back to her room and she closed the door so Matilda had to stay. She set the thermostat down for the night. No one can tell a cat what to do, but-- Cats can't open doors. And if they're in a cool room with a warm body, they'll go to it. It's in their nature to want to be close, to share warmth, to be touched.

Syd sat on the bed and waited, and soon enough, Matilda came to her. She hopped up on the bed and sniffed around, and then-- 

The first time Matilda crawled into her lap, Syd wanted to scream. She didn't, but she flinched so badly she startled Matilda, who ran off before inevitably returning to her only source of warmth. She was more cautious the second time, but Syd was more prepared. She offered a cat treat as an apology, and Matilda settled back into her lap.

The first session with Matilda, Syd opened the door after a total of ten minutes. She only kept Matilda in her lap for thirty seconds before she picked the cat up and put her out in the hall as gently as she could. And then she sat down at her table and drank, and hated David for not fulfilling his responsibilities to her. How dare he choose her, how dare he pry his way into her heart and touch her and make her need him, and then leave? 

He made her need him, and then he left.

She knew it wasn't rational. She knew he was taken. But his absence gnawed at her, and her need for him sat in her heart like a worm in an apple. Everything was fine on the surface, but she was being destroyed from within.

She talked about it to Melanie, a little, in the context of how it felt to need touch when David was the only one who could touch her. Syd wanted to be fine. She'd always taken care of herself. She didn't need anyone. She didn't need David. She didn't need touch. 

Syd was lying to herself. Melanie tried to coax her into seeing that. She urged her to keep trying with Matilda. She taught Syd about touch starvation, skin hunger, somatosensory affectional deprivation. She tried to get Syd into a haphephobia support group, but Syd politely declined. All those people who were afraid to touch, they didn't have powers like her. Touch didn't bring physical pain that would never ever go away. It was just-- Psychological pain.

But having one kind of pain didn't mean she couldn't have the other.

So she kept trying with Matilda. She kept trying and it got easier. She stopped wanting to scream. Matilda was soft and warm and purred like a motor and petting her was-- Still like petting a hedgehog the wrong way, but-- 

David was still gone. Weeks, months, and David was still gone and she still needed him. So she kept trying. Everyone else started to give up hope. After so long with no sign, and David being as powerful as he is-- If he didn't come back to them, it was either because he wouldn't or because he couldn't. Because he was dead.

Syd couldn't accept that. She tried not to. But every day he wasn't there, it was harder to believe he'd ever come back. So she held Matilda more and more, practiced swapping with her, prowled the halls of Division 3 and let the child soldiers pet her. And all of that was almost enough.

She lifts her arm and pets Matilda. It's like petting a very soft, soothing hedgehog the wrong way.

"Good morning."

Syd looks up to see Amy at the foot of her cot. She looks around. Kerry and Cary are already up, but David's still asleep. Amy sits on Kerry's cot and scratches behind Matilda's ears.

"Can I borrow her?" Amy asks. 

Syd nods, and Amy picks Matilda up and puts her into her lap. She pets Matilda in long, easy strokes, soaking up the sensation of the soft, warm fur under her hand. Syd feels a twang of old, familiar jealousy, but lets it go. Troublesome as it is, at least she has a body.

Syd thinks about how it felt yesterday, having Amy and Ptonomy touching her, holding her. It doesn't feel real. Maybe she dreamt it. She stares at Amy's hand, moving in steady strokes, and feels jealous not of Amy, but of Matilda.

Amy notices her watching. She susses her out. Amy's been-- Different, since they rescued her, since she got her own android. Less reactive, less caught up in her own head. She's calmer and more engaged. It was her body making her anxious the way Ptonomy's body made him angry. What does Syd's body do to her? What would she be like in the mainframe?

She'd rather not find out, but-- She can't help but wonder.

And then Amy reaches out, slowly so Syd could stop her if she wanted, and strokes Syd's arm the same way she stroked Matilda.

Syd bites back a moan. It's embarrassingly sexual. But god, it feels _so good_.

Amy smiles. "Good?"

Syd bites her lip, nods. 

"Ptonomy said I should try giving you a massage," Amy says, continuing to casually pet Syd's arm. Every time she reaches the end of Syd's glove-- That narrow band of bare skin between her sleeve and the glove--

Forget alcohol. This is something she could get drunk on.

Amy gives her a fond smile. "I think that's something we can work up to. Would you feel comfortable taking off your glove?"

Syd hesitates. It's silly, this is just-- Amy touching her arm. There's no reason for her to feel like-- Some blushing virgin.

But she does. She's so used to having that physical barrier to protect her, and not just from an accidental swap. She knows her powers won't activate with Amy, they can't. There's no needles warning her away. It's just like the white room, like the first time David took her there and kissed her cheek and-- Touched her. Held her hand. That moment was-- So intense, so intimate, so-- She fell in love with David all over again when he touched her.

And it wasn't him. It was but-- It wasn't. Farouk was inside him, he had control of David for-- All of that. Syd flashes back to the desert, to Melanie-Farouk pouring poison in her ear, and then Syd poured that poison into David, accusing him, calling him Son of Sam--

Syd sits up, her heart in her throat, and wraps her arms around herself. Her whole body goes utterly still.

"Syd?" Amy calls, concerned. 

Syd can't answer. She can't--

"Syd?" Ptonomy's here. He sits on her cot, but at a safe distance. "It's okay. Whatever it is, you're safe. Just breathe."

Syd takes a shuddering breath, then another. Her heart sinks back down into her chest. She eases her hold on herself, but doesn't drop her arms.

"Can you tell me what just happened?" Ptonomy asks, gently.

Syd looks at David, sleeping in his bed. Are his brothers still sleeping with him? The sleep inducer isn't on his head anymore. "Not here," she says.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "How about you take a moment, get dressed, make a hot drink. Then we'll talk in the garden. Okay?"

Syd nods.

§

Syd sits in the garden with a blanket around her shoulders, letting the steam from her tea fill her senses, and finally understands how David feels with all his rough mornings. Being vulnerable, letting herself feel all the things she's worked so hard not to feel-- It's awful. But it's the only way she can start to get better.

She wants to do this. She wants to-- Love other people, open up to them and trust them.

She takes a deep breath and meets Ptonomy's eyes. There's still no judgement in them, only acceptance. She can do this. She can open up. Here she is, opening up.

"Last year," she starts, because that's where she needs to start. "When David-- Came back." Not the second time they lost him, but the first. She blamed him for that, too, even though-- She remembers David as a scared little boy in the memory walk. She held him and he held her back so tightly. 

That was the first time she touched him, not the white room. And that was David, it was only David.

Ptonomy's eyes are sharp with understanding. "He wasn't himself."

Syd looks down into her cup. "How much do you think-- Was him?"

"I was asking myself the same question a while ago," Ptonomy says. "Looking at Division 3's old footage of him. I wondered when David was David, and when he was Yellow or Green. Dvd or Divad."

Syd remembers that. She was half out of her mind with shock, and then she saw the footage of David, of Dvd. And she felt-- Horrified and scared and hurt and betrayed and angry and sick and-- Used. 

"Farouk used me," she says. "As a-- Reward. For David. Sex." She knows Ptonomy read Melanie's notes, so she knows he knows her side of what happened that day. "To keep David distracted, to keep him-- Compliant."

"That seems very likely," Ptonomy agrees. "We still don't know David's side of that story. I started getting David to talk about that, but-- He was distracted by a breakthrough about still being himself." He gives a wry smile. "David's full of surprises."

Syd gives a dry laugh. She sips her tea. Takes a breath. She can do this.

"He was inside David," she continues. "Not just-- Watching, passive. He was-- I don't know, directing him? David felt so different. He was different. I don't know-- How much of what happened--"

"How do you feel about that?" Ptonomy asks.

It's a hell of a question. "I didn't," Syd admits. "All I cared about was getting him back, and when we did-- I don't think either of us wanted to-- Maybe if we'd had more time, but--"

"I don't think time would have helped," Ptonomy says. "Given what we know about the original timeline--"

"Yeah," Syd admits. She and David are both experts at repression. In the original timeline, that destroyed them both and they took the world out with them. 

"So how do you feel about it now?" Ptonomy asks. "Is that what upset you with Amy?"

Syd nods. She tries to say more, but she can't.

"Farouk violated both of you," Ptonomy says for her. "You told David you forgave him for violating you two weeks ago. Have you forgiven him?"

"I have," Syd insists. "I was-- Doing exactly what David was doing. Refusing to let go of my pain." She meets Ptonomy's eyes. "That's what I taught him to do."

"You did," Ptonomy acknowledges. "But you were also teaching yourself that lesson. Don't hold on to your pain from this."

Syd's trying. It's just-- Too big for her to pull free. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says, seeing that she's stuck. "When you think about that day, who are you mad at most? David, Farouk, or yourself?"

It's such a good question. Syd takes a sip of her tea and thinks. "I guess-- I'm mad at everyone, but-- I should have known. That David wasn't-- That something was wrong. But he-- Farouk gave me what I needed."

"He watched you for a year, read your thoughts," Ptonomy says. "That's a lot of time to get to know someone. And you're the most important person in David's life."

Syd scoffs at that. "Maybe I was then. But now?"

Ptonomy nods. "Yes. I know, David's been dealing with a lot. He has a lot more people in his life now than he ever did. He has family, friends. All of those relationship are important. But you said it yourself. His love for you is powerful and he can't take it back."

That shouldn't make Syd feel better. She shouldn't want to still be in Farouk's sights. But Ptonomy's been listening to David's thoughts, studying him intensely day and night. He probably knows David better than he knows himself, just like Farouk. If he says David still loves her--

She thinks of Lenny telling her that David loved her so much in Summerland that it was-- Carve out his own heart and eat it much. And despite herself, despite her own need to survive, knowing he loves her that way-- It makes everything else, all the dangers and problems and violations-- None of it matters when she feels his love.

She wants him back. The more she lets herself feel that, the more it hurts that they lost each other. The more it hurts that she pushed him away. The more it hurts that he was gone. The more it hurts that they've been used, both of them, against themselves and each other, all for the benefit of a vile monster.

It's not fair. David loves her so much, and she loves him. That love shouldn't come with so much pain.

"I just want--" Syd starts, carried by a swell of emotion. "What we had should have been ours. Just ours, and he-- That monster took it from us, like he took so much--" She cuts herself off, her throat tight, eyes pricking with unshed tears. 

She wants to push all those feelings away from her. She wants to wrap her pain so tight around her heart she can't feel anything. But she can't. She can't allow herself that false comfort, and she knows it's false because it didn't protect her from Farouk, it didn't protect her from her own future self. It didn't protect her from herself or from David. What good is it, all this pain, if it can't protect her?

"I hated my mom," she says, suddenly. "I hated the way she-- She couldn't touch me but-- Sometimes I'd think, even if she could-- Because she didn't let anyone touch her. They could touch her body, but they couldn't--" She feels another fragment of pain break free. "I was so glad when she died, I was so _glad_. Fuck her, that's what I thought. She died alone and in pain and I was--"

Relieved. She was relieved, but-- Not for her mom, for herself. Her mom was dead and it was over. Syd was free. But she wasn't free. Her mom's poison didn't die with her. It lived on, controlling Syd long after her death. It was a parasite, draining her, making her contagious. It used her to infect David. It did that to her and she couldn't stop herself.

"I don't want to believe the things she taught me," Syd says, firmly. "I want her poison out of me. But I don't--" She takes a breath. "Taking the words out wasn't enough."

"No," Ptonomy agrees. "It was a powerful step, but it was just one step. Real change means the work never stops. We have to teach ourselves to be the kinds of people we want to be. But it's easier if we do it together, if we help each other, if we see the change we want for ourselves in those around us. You've figured out what you don't want, but that's not enough. You need to figure out what you do want, for yourself and for your relationship with David."

"I don't know," Syd admits. Even though she hated her mom-- Her mom was her world. Syd didn't have anyone else. She was an Untouchable Barrett. 

"That's okay," Ptonomy says. "But it means you have to look around you. You have to open yourself up to other people so they can show you other ways to be. No one has it all figured out, but they're all doing the work. Cary and Kerry, Amy and Lenny, the Davids, even Oliver. Everyone here has their own way to survive, their own way to love and be loved, their own way of navigating the challenges the world throws at us. That's all any of us are trying to do. So be with us. Talk to us. Open yourself up to the experience."

"Is that my homework for today?" Syd asks, wryly.

"It is," Ptonomy says. "It's time to go down for breakfast. David's awake and everyone's waiting for us. Then he needs me to talk to him, and then after that, you two are going to talk to me together. Use the time to get ready for that."

Syd takes a deep breath. "Right," she says, working up her courage. This is what she came back for. This is what she asked for. A chance to work things out, to try again. To make a relationship with David that's too strong for Farouk to use or break.

"And Syd?" Ptonomy reaches out his hand. "You can talk to me, too. As a friend."

Syd stares at his open hand before forcing herself to reach out and take it. His touch is different from David's, from Amy's. The grip of his hand, the texture of his palm, the pull of his strength against her own. She thinks of Amy's caress, the way it was-- Intimate and giving. She thinks of David's touch and the adoration in it, the devotion, the tender care and the desperate need. 

She thinks of how it felt to touch David’s cheek as he cried in grief-stricken shame, horrified at the way he'd unthinkingly hurt her. His tears soaking into her glove and the heat of his flushed face. She stroked his hair as he rested his tired head on the table. She touched his cheek again and saw his shame. She made him hold her hand.

She touched his body every night while he slept. She caressed him the way Amy caressed her arm, but she didn't let him know her touch. She did all that work on her haphephobia while she waited for him, but once he was back--

She used touch like a weapon. She used it to get what she wanted for herself, and sometimes that also meant giving David what he wanted. But touch can be generous, it can be kind. It can give without expectation of return. 

Other ways to be. Cary and Kerry, Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy, the Davids, even Oliver. They've all been showing her other ways to be, but she couldn't see them. She was too busy keeping herself in pain. Just like David.

But David's getting better. She has to get better too, so they can get better together.


	80. Day 11: He's not doing any of this alone.

When David wakes up, the first thing he sees is-- Divad and Dvd, sitting in the chairs beside the bed. He feels a surge of relief, but he's so bleary from sleep -- he didn't sleep like a log so much as a rock at the bottom of a lake -- that it takes him a while to remember why he's relieved.

They slept with him last night. And now they're out again. 

"Cary woke us up an hour ago," Dvd says. "You were still pretty wiped so we let you sleep."

David doesn't remember being woken up. But if he felt even worse than he does now, he's glad they gave him the extra hour. 

"Yeah," Divad says. "Yesterday was a lot. We can't take the day off, but we'll all try to take things easier."

"You'll feel better when you step out," Dvd promises. "A lot of that's our body, not you. I mean, you're tired too, but-- Some of that's ours and we're gonna carry it. You're not doing this alone, remember?"

David nods against the pillow, then pulls the blanket over his head. 

One of his brothers snorts. It's probably Dvd. David closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep. 

"Morning, sleepyhead."

It's Amy. David's half-tempted to refuse to come out, even for her, but-- It's Amy. And she's-- Not dying, but-- 

He sighs and pushes back the blanket.

Amy perches on the edge of the bed. "Rough morning already?" she asks, fondly. 

David gives her a plaintive look. She touches her hand to his cheek, and he takes it and holds it. Breathing against her artificial skin, he notices-- She even smells like herself. Aesthetically accurate. Amy-scented.

She smells like home. 

He can do this. He can get up and do this for her. 

When he sits up, she gives him a good, long hug. He clings back, drawing on her strength. They've been through so much, but-- They're together again. That's what matters. He remembers her-- Always being there for him, as much as she could. Maybe that's not all real, but-- It's real to him.

It's real to him.

"Come on," Amy says. "Everyone's been up for a while. Get cleaned up and we'll have breakfast."

David looks around. Everyone's in the lab except Syd and Ptonomy. He knows they have sessions together but not where he can see them, and his system keeps Ptonomy busy most of the day. So they must be having them first thing in the morning. They must be having one now. 

He stands and looks at the sitting area. The coffee table is cleared except for two trays full of ceramic pieces, all neatly laid out. There's no sign of the lamp components or the shade. He thinks of-- Lenny and Amy and Ptonomy working on the pieces all night, carefully cleaning off the tape residue. For him.

He's not doing this alone. He feels like-- That should be a mantra unto itself. He's not doing this alone. He can have two mantras, right? Why not? Obviously this idea needs some extra help. He's always had Amy. He remembers always having Amy. He doesn't remember always having brothers, but he did anyway. He had parents, even if he can barely remember them. He remembers having Lenny for-- almost a decade. The idea that he's always been on his own-- That's one of Farouk's delusions. It's just-- A really stubborn one.

When he gets out of the bathroom, breakfast isn't there yet. Lenny and Kerry must be out getting it. Everyone else is sitting at the table with Oliver, looking at photo albums.

"Come join us," Amy beckons. She shifts over so David can sit between her and Oliver, so Dvd has to shift over so she doesn't sit on him. "Oliver's having some memory therapy."

Memory therapy. Like when he looked at family photos with Amy. Except Oliver's memory therapy has a shot at actually working. David remembers then that Oliver had to use a sleep inducer last night, too.

"Oliver, how did you sleep?" David asks. "Did the inducer help?"

"I don't remember," Oliver says, but he sounds pleased about it.

"Oliver was out like a light," Cary says, proudly. "No jazz required. Hopefully at some point he'll be able to sleep normally without the inducer, but-- To have his mind and body sleeping together is going to be extremely beneficial. And we couldn't have done it without Divad."

Divad manages to look smug and humble at the same time. "Tell Cary thanks," he tells Oliver.

"Divad says thank you," Oliver relays. "And I also say thank you, to both of you."

Now Divad just looks smug.

Cary's pleased, too. "We were just telling Oliver about his childhood. Oliver, can you remember what we told you?"

"Apparently I'm from New Zealand," Oliver tells David. "I don't remember it, but-- My first thought was that it sounds very green. The pictures are black and white, but Cary said remembering green is promising."

"Black and white?" David asks, and looks at the album. "They're so old," he says, surprised.

"Remember, Oliver's older than he looks," Cary says. "Just like Kerry. And you and your brothers."

David frowns, then realizes: his missing year. Right. They've all-- Lost time, or-- Found their physical age no longer matching their temporal one. One year is less obvious than twenty-one, but--

He looks at Oliver, and Oliver looks back. There's a moment of-- Wordless understanding. Kinship. 

In the ice cube, last month, last year-- Would things have been different if he'd stayed and listened to Oliver?

Yes. They would have been different. If he'd stayed with Oliver-- Maybe Oliver could have protected him, kept him safe. Maybe everything would have been better. 

But Oliver was stuck on the astral plane, they both were. The only reason David found his way back was because of Farouk. And the only reason Oliver came back-- Was because he was following David. So there's just as much chance that David would have ended up even more like Oliver than he already is. He might have stayed lost and become detached, forgetting not just his real memories, but his quarter-real memories and his fake memories and everyone he loved.

So even though a lot of-- Terrible things happened, things David has nothing but regret for-- If he'd stayed, they wouldn't all be here now, together, getting better. Oliver wouldn't be remembering New Zealand. David wouldn't be-- Slowly being reassembled by his friends, put back together the right away, instead of-- The desperate fumblings of an escaped mental patient weaning himself off an insane amount of Haldol.

"So, um," David says, looking back down at the album again. "What else do you remember? Besides green?"

"I told Oliver about his parents," Cary says. "Ted and Kathryn, lovely people. And he has two older sisters. What were their names, Oliver?"

Oliver thinks. "Nora and-- Maggie?" 

"All no longer with us, I'm afraid," Cary says. "Their children are still in New Zealand, with families of their own, but I'm sure they'll be thrilled to have their Uncle Oliver back."

"Didn't Melanie say-- You inherited Summerland?" David asks. "As a-- Some kind of ranch?"

"A horse ranch," Cary says. "Oliver's family were all horse ranchers, going back generations. One of his uncles took the family business overseas. He was quite successful, but he never had children of his own. So when the time came, he left everything to Oliver." He smiles. "Who promptly sold off everything that wasn't nailed down and used his inheritance to fund Summerland." He gives Oliver a friend elbow. "Always the rebel."

"Apparently so," Oliver agrees. 

"So you were already helping mutants before that?" David asks, curious.

"Oliver's been helping people all his life," Cary says. "Not just mutants. A powerful mind like his-- He once told me that he spent his whole life listening to the world, and he heard so much suffering. He felt that his powers were a gift-- Not for himself, but for others. It was his duty to use it to help people, to help them heal." He frowns. "But at that time, few needed help the way we did. Mutantkind. It was a very dark time, David. Despite what you suffered-- The Hallers were good, kind people, to take in a mutant baby, to protect you as best they could."

David looks at Amy. She shifts her chair closer and puts her arm around his back. David leans against her, grateful they're together.

He starts to ask Oliver another question, but realizes-- Oliver isn't answering his questions. Cary's relaying for him. For-- The Oliver-that-was. And he realizes-- It must make Oliver uncomfortable, not remembering all these things that Cary remembers. But Oliver might still be too detached to even register that he's uncomfortable.

"It's all right," Oliver assures him. "We can see together the beauty of souls, hidden like diamonds in the clock of the world."

"Oh," David says, not entirely sure what that means. But-- It's beautiful. It makes him feel-- It's stupid, it's just some-- Snippet of half-forgotten poetry. And he's never been very religious, much less spiritual. But somehow-- It makes him feel like he's more than just-- What he's been made to be. 

No, that's-- That's silly. He's not-- Oliver probably didn't even mean anything by it. He's just-- Reciting from memory. David knows what he is. He's a lot of broken pieces on a coffee table.

Dvd gives a long-suffering sigh. David looks at him.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna smash it," Dvd tells him. "We're putting you back together, remember?"

"Aren't you technically part of the lamp?" David replies.

Dvd's answer to that is to give him the finger. But when he drops his hand, he tries to hide his smile, and he can't. And he knows David sees it, and now he's covering his face, embarrassed. It's-- Kind of cute, seeing Dvd actually-- Flustered.

"If I have to be part of that lamp, I'm obviously the bulb," Dvd insists, but he's actually _blushing_. David can't help but smile back. Which really sets Dvd off, and it's weirdly like-- _Flirting_. With himself. Or part of himself. 

"You sure are glowing," Divad snickers. 

Dvd gives him the finger for that, and his blush is replaced by a scowl. David's sad to see it go. He liked-- Being able to make Dvd happy.

And now Dvd looks like might break into tears. Shit.

"Shut up," Dvd says, but not like he means it. "You," he says, pointing at Divad, "are the worst."

Divad gives him the finger for that.

"No fighting, children," Oliver says, tolerantly. 

“Okay, _Dad_ ,” Dvd says, with palpable sarcasm. Then he gives Divad a narrow-eyed look and mutters, “He started it.”

Thankfully, the sound of approaching laughter distracts both his brothers. David turns to see Lenny and Kerry entering the lab, breakfast trays in hand. Kerry’s the one who was laughing, but Lenny’s looking pleased. 

“David!” Kerry greets, happy to see he’s awake. “Lenny just told me this great story about this John who tried to steal her drugs. She cut off his—“

“Thumb,” Lenny interrupts, seeing Cary’s alarm. “I cut off his thumb.”

Kerry frowns, confused. “You said it was his penis?”

Cary’s expression is thunderingly disapproving. David’s never seen Cary look thunderingly anything. He’s never even been a light shower.

“Anyway,” Lenny says, loudly. “Breakfast for people who can eat!” She puts her tray down in front of David and Oliver. Kerry sits down next to Cary with hers, and David isn’t quick enough to stop her from sitting on Divad. 

“Ah, that was—“ David starts, but Divad waves him off, already moving to an empty seat. Until the relay’s back on for the day, that’s just something they have to deal with. Or David could start carrying “this seat taken” signs and following his brothers around. 

Hmm, that’s actually not a terrible idea.

Kerry sets aside a covered plate for Syd, then lifts the cover off hers.

“Um, shouldn’t we wait for Syd?” David asks.

Amy pauses, presumably checking in with Ptonomy over the mainframe. “We should,” she agrees.

Kerry sighs but puts her cover back on.

Cary looks at Kerry in surprise. “Kerry, do you want to eat?”

“Eggs are okay,” Kerry says, but thinks about it. “I guess— I like eating sometimes. I like eating with my friends. And I like cream soda and hot chocolate and cherry pie.” She gives David a delighted look. He smiles back and she flushes, pleased.

Like Dvd. He’s— Making them happy. It feels— Almost wrong, to make someone happy, like he’s not supposed to be capable of that. He’s always been such a burden on— Everyone. Even the people who loved him— He heard what they thought about him; even when he couldn’t trust what he heard, he still knew when the voices were telling the truth. The bad things people thought about him, those always felt true. And when the monster was gone and he finally knew how to listen— It turned out he was right.

He can’t hear their thoughts now. 

“David?” Amy asks, concerned by David’s sudden change in mood.

David doesn’t know what to say. Even thinking these things— It only proves his fears true, thinking them when he just made Kerry and Dvd happy. That’s what he’s doing to them.

“You’re hurting yourself,” Divad warns him.

“Any whose fault is that?” Dvd defends. “Maybe he’s right. We can’t really know they mean it, any of it.”

“What, you think Kerry’s lying about cherry pie?” Divad challenges. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

David knows that. He knows Kerry wouldn’t lie to him. But—

“Hey, I’m not lying either,” Dvd protests. 

“If you don’t need to lie to me, then why won’t you let me hear your thoughts?” David asks, annoyed, and then realizes he said that aloud instead of just thinking it. Shit.

“David,” Amy says, but Lenny holds up a hand.

“I got this,” Lenny says. “David, look at me.”

David looks at her. 

“The relay’s off,” Lenny continues. “That means you gotta tell us when something’s wrong, remember? Ptonomy’s orders.”

“Oliver knows,” David mutters. 

“Oliver’s not on duty,” Lenny says. “C’mon, let out what’s rattling around in that empty head.”

David glares at her for that, but it’s half-hearted. His head is extremely empty. 

“It’s stupid,” he protests, ashamed. He’s ashamed. God, he’s having a shame attack. “Shit.” He rubs at his face. “I’m— Having a shame attack,” he admits, feeling even more ashamed because he’s admitting it. The shame onion strikes again.

“Hey, you caught it this time,” Lenny says, like it’s something impressive that he’s too broken to get through breakfast without self-destructing. They haven’t even started eating yet. God, he’s useless. 

“We can practice that compassion thing,” Lenny says. “Remember? Like this?” She puts her hand over her heart. 

David can’t. He can’t— Love himself, not when he feels like this. But he forces himself to copy Lenny anyway. He feels like such a fraud, he shouldn’t ever be loved, all he ever does is hurt people, they shouldn’t be trying to save him, Farouk’s going to use him like he always does and David will be powerless to stop it.

“Good,” Lenny says. “Now tell yourself something nice, like your foundation.”

David forces himself on. “I’m David.” Farouk’s David. “I survived.” He’s the thing Farouk made, a cocktail, a monster. “I didn’t deserve what happened to me.” He deserved it, of course he deserved it.

He can’t keep going. He can’t say the rest of it, it’s all— Ashes in his mouth. His mantra? He lost everything because he ruins everything. He should be alone. He’s not strong enough to do anything but fail. He—

“I’m loved,” he says, even though that’s the last thing he should be able to say. “There’s no shame in love. There’s no shame in love. There’s no—"

He grips at his chest as the shame starts to fade. He realizes— Amy still has her arm around him. She never stopped holding him.

He pushes aside his breakfast and slumps over the table, absolutely exhausted. 

“How about: you’re strong enough to heal?” Lenny says, and David looks up to see if she’s mocking him but she isn’t. 

“Cary, could you grab a blanket?” Amy asks. 

Cary brings one over and wraps it around David. “That was very good,” Cary says, hands on his shoulders, like Amy’s arm around his back. “We’re all proud of you.”

They shouldn’t be. David still feels ashamed. But it’s getting weaker. He keeps gripping at his chest, keeps telling himself there’s no shame in love. He feels Amy and Cary touching him and sees Lenny and Kerry watching him with caring concern and—

The attack passes. It’s over. 

Amy pulls him in for a hug, and he holds her back so tight it would probably hurt if she wasn’t in an android. 

“I’m just— One disaster after another,” he says, tired but with some humor. 

“You’re a bunch of pieces, right?” Lenny says. “Of course you are, we haven’t glued you back together yet.”

David gives a dry laugh at that. 

“Can you tell us what triggered the attack?” Cary asks. 

David’s not sure he can say it. He looks at his brothers. They look at each other. They’re probably thinking to each other so he can’t hear. 

“Yeah, we were,” Dvd admits. “And we both think you should tell them. Which means— You’re outvoted.”

“You can’t outvote me about my own thoughts,” David protests. That’s completely unfair. 

“Tough,” Dvd says. “We just did.”

God, this is humiliating. It’s so— He knows it’s not true, he knows it doesn’t make sense, but—

But he’s full of Farouk’s delusions. And the shame delusion wants to eat him alive. They can’t get it out of him if he doesn’t tell them what it’s doing to him. 

“The delusion,” David starts. “The shame delusion. It told me— I can’t make anyone happy.”

The idea that he can make other people happy, that he could make Kerry and Dvd happy— That’s a healthy idea. The delusion parasite knows it's a threat. It tried to destroy the healthy idea so it couldn’t nourish him. 

But he fought back. He told himself there’s no shame in love. He gave himself compassion and the monster— the delusion lost. Because he did make Kerry and Dvd happy. He did. He does. They weren’t lying. 

“Of course you can make other people happy,” Cary insists. “You’ve made all of us happy.”

David hesitates. All of them? No, he’s— He couldn’t— They—

He puts his hand back over his heart. There’s no shame in love. There’s no shame in love. There’s no shame in love.

The parasite backs down again.

“That parasite really doesn’t like that idea, huh?” Lenny says. 

David shakes his head. “It hates it.” 

“I bet it does,” Lenny says. “It knows we’re a threat. It wants us gone so it can have an easy meal. But we’re not gonna let it eat you alive, right?”

“Right,” David says, taking strength in her confidence. In her love. In Amy’s love, in Kerry’s, in Cary’s. In Dvd’s.

He looks at Dvd. 

Dvd’s looking at him— Intensely. Sometimes that’s been— Overwhelming, even— Upsetting. All that pressure to be— Who he was. But Dvd’s been trying to accept him as he is, David knows that, they spent all that time together yesterday and Dvd just— Stayed with him, kept him company. When they were both disembodied, Dvd held his hand to help him stay grounded. Being outside his body yesterday was— It was so much harder than he wanted to admit, but Dvd really helped him get through.

Their body. He’s— In their body, not his. His system’s body. They’re sharing it together. Even when they’re projected, they’re still inside their body together. Like they were last night. They were there while he slept and it was fine. It's just-- The feeling that's the problem. It's the feeling.

God, there's just-- So many things he has to work on, everywhere he turns. And forget about pinning one problem down and taking it apart when he can barely keep himself from drowning. When he-- Can't keep himself from drowning at all. He's only breathing because-- They're saving him. They keep saving him, over and over, and they're trying to help him be strong enough to save himself.

He's not doing this alone. He's not doing any of this alone. 

"David?" Amy prompts.

"I'm okay," David says. He's not okay, he's a bunch of pieces on a coffee table, but-- They're cleaning him up and they're going to glue him back together and-- That's what's okay. That's what's going to get him through-- Everything. Maybe even-- 

Maybe even Farouk. 

The enormous knot of dread in his gut loosens, just a tiny bit, at that thought. They need him to stop Farouk, but-- Stopping Farouk means saving David, saving himself. They're not going to make him do that alone, because they're not making him do it alone now. He's not doing any of this alone.


	81. Day 11: Who survives a lifetime of torture?

David tries not to stare at Syd over breakfast, but it's difficult when she's trying not to stare at him.

He tries to focus on something else. Cary's showing Oliver more photos, telling him his own life story, trying to help his mind reconnect with the dormant memories in his brain. But that makes David think about his own memories, and forgetting, and being made to forget makes him think about what he did to Syd, which makes him think about forgiveness, which makes him think about yesterday in the garden, and Syd telling him—

She forgives him. She loves him.

He couldn't hear her thoughts, and Syd's said so many things— He doesn't know what's true. He doesn't know what to believe, he doesn't know what to feel. They're going to have a session together this morning and David feels completely unprepared. He's been putting everything he has into fixing himself and his system. When he tries to think about Syd on top of that—

He should enjoy his breakfast more. It's the only chance he'll get to eat for the rest of the day. He missed eating yesterday. Even though he's so constantly emotionally exhausted that he barely cares what he's given— Now that he can't eat, now that he has to give up his— Their body for— Two-thirds of the day—

In Clockworks, he didn't have much control over his life. He didn't have any, really. But he could choose what to eat. And now— He can't even eat.

He can't fall apart again. He's had three disasters in the last twelve hours, he can't have another. Even if he's a bunch of ceramic pieces, they can't glue him back together if the pieces crumble every time they pick one up.

"You eat lunch for us," Dvd offers. "If I get lunch again. I guess it's up to Ptonomy when it's my turn."

That's— Very kind of Dvd, but— Dvd needs time in their body. He needs to eat. He didn't get to eat for— God, it must have been well over a decade. Like how Oliver didn't sleep for over twenty years. 

"We'll eat together when you can share with us again," Dvd says. "Kerry said she doesn't care about eating, but she likes eating with her friends. If it helps you get better— I care a hell of a lot more about you than some stupid sandwich."

David wishes that didn't make him feel better. But it does. 

"Thank you," he says, aloud because Dvd deserves that. He gives Dvd a grateful look, and Dvd— Looks happy. 

And then they both look at Divad.

"If you want to give up your meal, fine," Divad says. "But I want to eat."

Dvd narrows his eyes, annoyed.

"It's okay," David insists, intervening before they start arguing again. "It's his body, too, right?"

Dvd is not convinced. "We all should be putting our system first."

"I am," Divad says. "David needs to eat to get better. So do I."

"We'll eat together when we can share," Dvd says again.

"Maybe I don't want to always share," Divad replies. "Maybe I need time to just be me and not— Us."

Dvd scowls. "You don't want to be us."

"I'm trying to be part of our system again," Divad tells him. "How am I supposed to do that if you won't let me?"

"David?" Amy touches his arm, drawing his focus. "What are you and your brothers talking about?"

"Oh, um," David starts. He looks around the table. "Eating. Who gets to—" He takes a breath. "Dvd offered to let me eat when it's his turn."

"That's very generous of him," Ptonomy says. "But he needs to eat, too."

"I know," David says. "I told him and— He said—" He glances at Kerry. "He'll eat when we can share again."

Ptonomy considers this. "David, would you be comfortable stepping out so I can speak with Dvd? Just for a minute."

David hesitates. He doesn't want to leave his— Their body. But if it's just a minute—

"I've got you," Amy says, putting her arm around him again. 

David gives her a grateful look, then steps out. It's strange, these moments when all three of them are outside of their body, when it's empty and slack. But Dvd steps in and now— It's his body.

Dvd tenses in Amy's hold, but— He doesn't pull away from it. 

"Dvd," Ptonomy says. "You have a pattern of self-sacrifice on David's behalf. I know you want to take care of him, but you need to be cared for, too."

"Not eating is bad for David," Dvd insists.

"Not eating is bad for Dvd," Ptonomy counters. "I know yesterday was a lot for all of you, and especially for David. But meals are part of your therapy."

"Yesterday was too much for David," Dvd says, annoyed. "You're supposed to keep things manageable but you didn't."

"None of us want what happened yesterday to keep happening," Ptonomy says. "We've asked David to warn us when things are too much. He didn't."

"Then let me tell you" Dvd says, with eager anger. "Because I'll tell you."

"I want David to tell me," Ptonomy says. "David, please step back in."

Dvd steps out with a huff. David steps back in, even though now he wants to stay out.

"David," Ptonomy says. "After breakfast we're going to have a session, but right now— I want you to tell me what Dvd overheard that made him try to self-sacrifice."

David sighs and tries to find the words. Why is it so much harder to say things than to think them? And sometimes he can't even think them, but then he feels them anyway.

"It's not about the food," he admits. "I mean, I miss eating, but— I just—" He swallows. He feels like a failure. "It's not even about— I want to share, but—" God, what is it? What stubborn thought doesn't want to come out?

He realizes he's curled in on himself, defensive. Afraid. He's afraid.

"I'm afraid," he says, getting the words out before they can hide again.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So what's scaring you?"

Everything. His whole life has been fear, he has an endless list of reasons to be afraid. But David knows that wouldn't be a helpful answer. 

And then he glances at Syd and he knows. But he can't just— He can't say that in front of her. If he did— She'd probably— Un-forgive him again. She'd be upset, she'd be angry— She wouldn't cry, Syd doesn't cry, but— She'd still be— Hurt and then— 

"You want me to tell them?" Dvd asks, not hiding his eagerness. "I'll tell them."

"Absolutely not," David says. "It's bad enough you were— Yelling at people with your thoughts. You'd better not be doing that anymore."

"Only if they really deserve it," Dvd says. "And Syd absolutely—"

"Don't," David warns. "This is why I don't want her to have the relay."

Syd stiffens.

David wants to kick himself. He keeps thinking things he's supposed to say aloud, and saying things aloud that he should only think. It doesn't matter when the relay is on and everyone can hear everything either way. But everyone doesn't include Syd.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, thankfully catching on. "Finish your breakfast and we'll go up to the garden."

§

David feels like a coward. He's talked about everything in front of everyone for days, but when it comes to talking about Syd—

He can't talk about Syd in front of Syd. This is— It's hard enough not wanting to upset Amy. He's made progress accepting that it's okay to upset Amy, but it absolutely doesn't feel safe to upset Syd. But recognizing that only makes him feel worse.

He just— They told him he hadn't forgiven Syd, but— It's more than that, somehow. Even though he knows she's hurt him, obviously she's— He still can't— 

Everything that went wrong between them— It should just be his fault. Even though he feels angry about the things she said to him, did to him— If he'd just— If he'd understood or— If he'd— If he hadn't— There must have been— If he'd known about— But he couldn't have known— But—

He should have. He _should_ have. If he wasn't so _stupid_ he wouldn't have _ruined everything_.

David realizes— His thoughts are hurting him. 

Ptonomy needs to know that. But the relay's still off, so David has to say it.

He glances over at Divad and Dvd. They're sitting apart from each other, each on their own bench while David and Ptonomy have the table. Part of him wants to let Dvd speak for him, like he wanted to accept Dvd's offer of lunch. But Ptonomy's right, it's not fair to ask Dvd to self-sacrifice. David will survive only eating one of their meals a day. He'll survive talking about his own feelings. He can do this.

He still wishes the relay was on.

"About Syd," he starts, because Ptonomy's been patiently waiting for him to spit something out. "It's like— How I feel with Amy but— Worse. A lot worse, and—" Why is this so hard? "Everything that happened— I can't—" Say it, _say it._ "It has to be my fault." God, it sounds so stupid when he says it aloud. Why is he so stupid?

"Okay," Ptonomy says, considering. "Let's take those one at a time. Why are you afraid of upsetting Amy?"

David thinks about that. He can't remember not feeling that way, but— What was it Amy said? "Amy said our whole family was like that. I don't remember, but— She said we didn't want to talk about Mom's illness, or— Our pain. But— It's weird. Not remembering any of that but still—"

"You remember what you learned," Ptonomy says. "Farouk took away your experiential memories, but left some of your semantic memories intact."

"That's— The opposite of what he did with Divad's memories," David realizes. Farouk gave him Divad's experiential memories but not his semantic memories. 

Ptonomy nods. "There were a lot of things in your childhood that taught you to hide your pain. But you're a very open person. I think you always have been. The lessons that taught you to be closed must have been extremely harsh."

David takes that in. "But when Farouk changed me— He made me trusting."

"We don't know exactly what he did or how he did it," Ptonomy says. "Personality is a complex thing. We know he gave you strong memories of safety and love. Those memories gave you a sense of secure attachment that you didn't actually have growing up. Secure attachment helps us trust. Applied retroactively to a traumatized mind— That might explain a lot."

"Feeling loved without feeling loved," David says. "I think— He made a cocktail out of Mom and Amy. In my memories. Like Benny and Lenny."

"So memories you have of Amy, those were originally your mom?"

David nods. "Some of them. I can't really— I've been trying to— Find the seams. The inconsistencies. So I can— Try to accept what I have."

"I think that's a healthy approach," Ptonomy says. "And that can help you understand yourself better. If your mom was sick and you were afraid of upsetting her— The emotions you felt for her were combined with the emotions you felt for Amy. Just like how Farouk combined the emotions you felt towards Benny and Lenny."

David tries to imagine how it must have been for him before, in his actual past. A sick but loving mom, her health delicate. And— He was delicate, too. That's what Amy said, that's how Divad and Dvd treat him. They had to be careful not to upset him because he was already deeply traumatized. And David had secrets he had to keep: about his powers, about his brothers, about— About the monster. Because when he tried to tell people about the monster, they thought he was crazy.

Maybe that's why it's so hard to talk. Because he was taught over and over again not to talk, that talking about his feelings and his powers and so many other things— It was dangerous, it was wrong, it hurt him and hurt his family. And then— He forgot all of that. But Farouk left him Amy. He left David a strong cocktail of Mom and Amy and all the emotions: the love, the need, the fear, the dependence.

"But Syd is just Syd," David points out. At least— He's mostly sure Syd is just Syd. God knows his own mind can't be trusted. 

"Let's talk about that other idea," Ptonomy says. "That blaming yourself, hurting yourself, will protect you. We've talked about this before. That shame you feel, that self-punishment is a survival mechanism."

"Because of my— What was it?"

"Developmental trauma," Ptonomy says. "But there's more to it than that. I've talked about this with your brothers, but I think we need to address it now so you can make progress with Syd and with them. It's trickier with you because— Again, you can't remember the experiential side of those memories."

"But they remember," David says. "What Farouk did to us."

Ptonomy nods. "They remember a lot of it. You only remember— The scar tissue. The semantic memory, shapeless lessons of fear and pain. Those feelings are real and powerful, but your false memories and amnesia make it hard for you to understand the reasons for your own actions. Farouk uses that ignorance. He exploits the gap between reality and perception. That doesn't mean he tells the truth. It means because we don't know our real truths, he can fool us with his."

There's no one with a bigger gap between reality and perception than David himself. It's no wonder he's been so easy to manipulate. Two months ago, he didn't know about the monster or his powers. Two weeks ago, he didn't know he had DID. But Farouk made him this way. That ignorance is what Farouk wants, what he needs.

"That's how he pulls off his tricks," Ptonomy continues. "But the more we close that gap, the less room he has to work."

"But my memories are gone," David says. "And you said— Recovering my traumatic amnesia—"

"Your system isn't ready for that," Ptonomy says. "But we don't need you to remember, not for this. Because the thing about abuse is that it doesn't go away on its own. It becomes central to our perceptions of ourselves and those around us, and so we repeat it. There's a term for that: traumatic re-enactment. Sometimes that means hurting ourselves because there's no one who will hurt us the way our abuser did. Sometimes that means being drawn to people who will give us what we think we need. So we can look at your life history, at the relationship patterns you've engaged in, and we can get a sense of the original abuse."

David doesn't like where this is heading, but— He isn't surprised, either. Lenny tried to distract him, and it worked for a while. "Divad and Syd." He glances over at Divad, but Divad is looking firmly away.

Ptonomy nods. 

David wishes he could deny it. But even though he lost all those memories of Farouk— He has some. He has enough. He's seen the way he and his brothers fit together, hurting each other, hurting him. Their system has been re-enacting their trauma over and over.

And Syd— Yesterday, she said she didn't want to do to him what her mom did to her. And he's afraid of her, afraid of— Her anger, her— Punishment. So he tries to blame himself because— 

"How did blaming myself protect me?" David asks, because he honestly doesn't know. 

"We know the pattern," Ptonomy says. "A very simple and cruel lesson that Farouk taught your system over and over. However it started— Farouk would create an impossible situation for you, one you would try and fail to resolve. Then you were punished for that failure. That punishment could be severe. When you finally broke, when you'd 'learned your lesson'— That's when you were given love so you could heal, so you could recover before it all happened again."

"Farouk never loved me," David insists. He sure of that, no matter what Farouk claims.

"You don't remember," Ptonomy says, gentle but firm. "But the pattern tells us. You were too young to do anything but accept what he did to you. We know you were given King's love, your brothers' love, to help you heal. So blaming yourself— That's a way for you to stay in the part of that cycle where you feel safest. The part of the cycle where you're loved."

Ptonomy waits while David takes that in.

David looks at Dvd and Divad. Divad still won't face him, but Dvd is looking back at him, arms crossed but his eyes full of emotion.

Dvd's self-sacrifice, his protectiveness. He said— The other day, when he looked at David with tears in his eyes, desperate to be the one to hold him, to make him better—

Traumatic re-enactment. David broke and Dvd healed him, over and over again for years. And Divad—

Divad healed him, too. He has powers— But he— 

"What was the lesson?" David asks, even as he feels the answer inside him, shapeless and huge. "The one Farouk made me learn?"

"That David was bad," Ptonomy says, as gently as he can. "Over and over again, he taught that David was bad. And then you became a system, and that system tried hard to fight back. But they learned the same lesson you did."

Divad's apology yesterday. The things he said. The things he's said since he came back. Sometimes it's felt like Divad is two different people in one, alternately punishing David and helping him. But that's the lesson they all learned. And David punishes himself, or—

He finds someone who will.

"I love Syd because she hurts me," David says.

"You both came into your relationship with unresolved trauma," Ptonomy explains. "If there are two traumatized people in a crowded room, they'll find each other. They'll feel familiar to each other and that familiarity can feel like safety. But if they can't resolve that trauma, their relationship will become a re-enactment. But the good news is that you don't have to re-enact, you don't have to repeat that pattern of abuse. Syd is working on resolving her trauma and so are you and your brothers."

David stands up and just— Walks a few steps away, stops. He faces the city and feels the breeze, the warmth of the sun.

He feels— 

He can't even begin to process how he feels. He can't— 

Who is he? Who is he, in all of this? Because everything he's learned, everything in him, every memory, every pattern, every relationship, every _thought_ —

It's hard to believe there's anything left of him, of who he would have been if none of this had happened. It's hard not to feel like they saved him too late.

A lifetime of torture. Who survives a lifetime of torture? 

He didn't. He never survived. He just became the torture. Even when he forgot everything, he knew what he deserved. 

He doesn't want to die now, but the feeling— It wasn't just that he was trying to make it stop. He was hurting himself the only way he could, because— 

He was in an impossible situation and he failed to resolve it. So he had to be punished, he had to— Suffer. He had to suffer as much as he could, he had to— 

He doesn't even— All his mistakes, were they mistakes? Or self-sabotage? How can he know? He can't trust his own mind, his own memories, his own instincts. He's so full of delusions, monstrous delusions—

It feels like the only answer is more pain. Because all of those things are proof of his brokenness, his worthlessness, his— If he just hurts himself enough— If he just—

But that's Farouk's lesson. His abuse. There is no right amount. It's all a trick. He's had a lifetime of pain and it never made him better. It only made him worse, fed the shame inside him until—

He breathes. His face is wet with tears, but he keeps breathing.

He doesn't want to be Farouk's David anymore. He doesn't want to be a victim of Farouk or himself. He wants to be his own David. He doesn't want that David to re-enact. He doesn't want that David to seek out his own destruction. 

But he doesn't— How can he ever—

He's just pieces. They took him apart, they got him clean, but— Now what? 

"Now what?" he asks, turning back to Ptonomy. He sits back down and looks at him, hoping desperately for an answer.

"We keep doing the work," Ptonomy says. "The work never stops for anyone. We've done a lot so far. We kept you alive and helped you stay alive. We put a lot of work into understanding you and helping you understand yourself and your relationships. And now you're ready for the next stage."

"Okay," David says, listening.

"Our goal for your system's therapy is healthy multiplicity. That's all three of you working together and treating your system with love and respect. You have a similar goal with Amy. You want your relationship with her to be reciprocal, respectful, honest and open. You've made progress on those relationships. How does that make you feel?"

"Good," David says, thinking of how much closer he is with Amy, how much better they both feel not being— Afraid of each other. "Happy," he says, thinking of that moment before breakfast with Dvd, making him smile and smiling back. 

"That's excellent," Ptonomy says, warmly. "Our family should be our example for healthy relationships. That isn't always possible, but that doesn't mean we can't do the work to improve those relationships together and make them what we always needed them to be. As long as we're here and we love each other, we can do the work together."

"I'm not doing this alone," David says. 

"That's right," Ptonomy says. "None of us are doing this alone. The more we help each other, the easier all of this will be."

David takes a deep breath and lets it out. He dries his face. He looks at his brothers, then back at Ptonomy. 

"And Syd?" he asks.

"When you're ready, she'll come up and join us," Ptonomy says. "You two will have the chance to talk about how you feel and to discuss what you want for your relationship. But David— It's very important to understand that you do have a choice. You always have the choice to say no to whatever makes you uncomfortable. Even with your family, Amy and your brothers. You have the right to tell them when you're uncomfortable. You have the right to reject a bad situation, to reject and leave a bad relationship."

"I can't leave my brothers," David counters.

"You can't," Ptonomy agrees. "That's why it's so important for all three of you to get better together. And the three of you do love each other, just like you and Amy love each other. What does love mean to you, David?"

David has to think about that. Love is in his foundation, he should know what it means. He knows the love he's felt from his family, his friends. "Um— Affection. Support." That's all true, but it feels like there's more. Healthy multiplicity, being open with Amy— "Trust. Honesty. Respect."

"Excellent," Ptonomy says. "So when someone says they love you, but they don't treat you with trust, honesty, and respect?"

David hesitates. If it’s not his fault— He looks at Ptonomy questioningly.

"That means there's a problem," Ptonomy explains. "Maybe it's something small. Talk to the person, try to understand each other better, talk out what's wrong. If it works, you'll feel their love. But serious problems— There are two ways that can go. Either they'll be ready to accept help or they won't."

"So I should help them?" David asks.

"If you can," Ptonomy says. "But for serious problems— They'll need help from someone else. And that's okay. When we're hurt, we need a doctor, someone trained in healing. If you needed surgery, you wouldn't ask Amy to do it just because she loves you, you'd go to a hospital."

David nods.

"So that last situation," Ptonomy says. "If you're in a relationship with someone who says they love you, but they don't treat you with love and they're not ready to accept help? If they just want to keep hurting you? What do you think you should do?"

"I should— Say no?" David asks.

"You should say no," Ptonomy agrees. "And if they don't take no for an answer?"

David hesitates again. But— Ptonomy said— "I should reject them?"

"You should reject them," Ptonomy agrees. "How about you write that down?"

"Okay," David says, opening his notebook. 

"Write down what you feel love is," Ptonomy guides. "And then write down what to do when you don't feel loved."

David thinks, then writes:

_Love means giving each other affection and support, and treating each other with trust, honesty, and respect._

_If someone says they love me but I don't feel loved, we should talk out small problems._  
If the problems are big, we should get help.  
If the other person won't stop hurting me, I should reject them. 

"Very good," Ptonomy says. "How about we add one more thing? You have the right to say no. Not just when you're being hurt. If you sense something is wrong, if you're uncomfortable, if a situation feels off to you— Say no. Step back. If there's someone who you trust, go to them and ask for help. You have the right to say no."

David writes: _I have the right to say no._

"Excellent work," Ptonomy says. "Where are your brothers right now?"

David points them out.

"Divad, Dvd," Ptonomy says. "Do you agree with what David wrote?"

"Of course," Dvd says.

"Yeah," Divad says, quietly.

"They do," David relays. 

"They can make mental projections of your system’s notebook, right?" Ptonomy asks.

"Sure," David says. "Do you want them to write something?"

"I want all three of you to each do your system foundation work," Ptonomy says. He hands David the system notebook. "Add what you just wrote to this, and have your brothers write it in their mental notebooks. Then I want all of you to write out your foundational ideas again, as they are. And then David, you need to do your own foundation and mantra work. When all three of you are ready, we'll have our session with Syd."

Dvd and Divad create copies of their system notebook and come over to the table. They sit down on either side of David and the three of them begin to write.


	82. Day 11: She'll be the sister Syd never had.

"Thank you," David says, suddenly, during breakfast.

Syd turns and sees David looking at the empty chairs set aside for his alters. His brothers. Dvd and Divad. The three of them are having another one of their conversations, and with the relay off only Oliver can hear all of it. And Oliver is busy listening to Cary so he can learn his own life story.

"It's okay," David insists. "It's his body, too, right?"

David's called it hearing a third of a conversation, when the three of them talk, but it's even less than that because Dvd and Divad don't need the relay to hear David's thoughts. That's how they spoke secretly with David for days and days, before they showed themselves physically to David and he started talking back to them out loud. When Syd thought David was lost in his thoughts, the three of them were having private conversations in his head, talking about Farouk, about her, making plans. And they’ve always been there, watching her through David’s eyes. They’ve experienced everything David experienced, including her.

They're not like Farouk. They're other parts of David. They're the rest of him. It's just that the rest of him happens to be two other people.

"David?" Amy touches David's arm, drawing his attention. "What are you and your brothers talking about?"

"Oh, um," David starts. He looks around the table. "Eating. Who gets to—" He takes a breath. "Dvd offered to let me eat when it's his turn."

"That's very generous of him," Ptonomy says. "But he needs to eat, too."

"I know," David says. "I told him and— He said—" He glances at Kerry. "He'll eat when we can share again."

Ptonomy considers this. "David, would you be comfortable stepping out so I can speak with Dvd? Just for a minute."

David hesitates. 

"I've got you," Amy says, putting her arm around him. 

David gives Amy a grateful look, then— He's Dvd. It's still so strange seeing them switch, seeing David become someone else. Dvd's expression is decidedly less grateful. His posture tenses, his eyes are hard and narrow with suspicion.

"Dvd," Ptonomy says. "You have a pattern of self-sacrifice on David's behalf. I know you want to take care of him, but you need to be cared for, too."

"Not eating is bad for David," Dvd insists.

"Not eating is bad for Dvd," Ptonomy counters. "I know yesterday was a lot for all of you, and especially for David. But meals are part of your therapy."

"Yesterday was too much for David," Dvd says, annoyed. "You're supposed to keep things manageable but you didn't."

"None of us want what happened yesterday to keep happening," Ptonomy says. "We've asked David to warn us when things are too much. He didn't."

"Then let me tell you," Dvd says, with eager anger. "Because I'll tell you."

"I want David to tell me," Ptonomy says. "David, please step back in."

Dvd huffs, and then— He's David again. His defenses fall away, his posture relaxes, and his eyes fill up with emotion. 

"David," Ptonomy says. "After breakfast we're going to have a session, but right now— I want you to tell me what Dvd overheard that made him try to self-sacrifice."

David sighs. "It's not about the food," he admits. "I mean, I miss eating, but— I just—" He swallows and his body curls in, defensive. "It's not even about— I want to share, but—" He realizes something. "I'm afraid."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So what's scaring you?"

David concentrates, looks around, and then— 

He looks at her for only a moment before he looks away. 

"Absolutely not," David says to one of the empty chairs. "It's bad enough you were— Yelling at people with your thoughts. You'd better not be doing that anymore. Don't," he warns. "This is why I don't want her to have the relay."

Syd stiffens.

David looks like he wants to kick himself.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, realizing what David doesn’t want to say aloud. "Finish your breakfast and we'll go up to the garden."

David nods and stares down at his food, probably so he doesn’t have to look at anything else. At her. 

She’s what’s scaring him, what’s upsetting him. Dvd and Divad knew that even before David did. And of course they did. David doesn’t like thinking about the things that upset him. She’s always known that. 

She's hurt him. He doesn't want to think about that, but they're going to have their session soon and that means he has to think about it. 

David finishes eating and stands up. He looks at Ptonomy, who also stands, and then glances at Syd once and very quickly before they both leave the lab.

"Syd?" Amy says. "Are you okay?"

Syd's instinct is to say she's fine. It's to grit her teeth and shove everything down until she can get away and be on her own, and then to numb herself however she can. She wants to do that so much. It's taking everything she has to not do that.

But she can't. She has to teach herself to be the kind of person she wants to be. And she doesn't know what she wants to be, so she has to stay with her friends and open up to them, learn from them. That's her homework. That's how she's going to get better.

It's just— Breathtakingly hard. She really needs a mantra. 

"How about you come sit with me?" Amy asks, when Syd doesn't answer her. She pats the empty chair beside her.

Looking at the empty chair— Syd realizes that if David is gone, so are Dvd and Divad. And that makes her feel a tiny bit better, just enough for her accept Amy's offer. She feels very exposed as she gets up and walks around the table. She sits down next to Amy and holds herself very still.

"Can I touch you?" Amy asks.

After this morning, Syd's wary. But they touched her yesterday and it was fine, it was more than fine. Maybe different kinds of touch affect her differently. She has to experiment to find out.

"Okay," she says.

Amy slowly brings her arm around until she's holding Syd the way she was holding David. Their bodies are close, their sides just pressing together. She and David never touched this way. They can't touch casually with their real bodies, and when they were in the white room, casual was the last thing they wanted. It's been very— All or nothing, aching absense or full intensity, even when they weren't having sex.

This is different than a hug, different than Ptonomy's hand, different than Amy stroking her arm this morning. It feels— Supportive, intimate, but not demanding. A little awkward because even close together, there's a gap between the chairs. But it's good. It feels good. She feels safe. Amy feels safe.

Syd breathes out. 

Amy moves her arm, rubbing where her hand rests against the back of Syd's hip. Syd's mind follows the motion, feels the way Amy's fingertips press harder than her palm, the way her thumb lags and drags. It's distracting, even lulling. Syd feels herself relax. Physically, at least.

"Better?" Amy asks.

Syd nods. 

"I'm sorry you and David are having such a difficult time," Amy continues. "This is very hard for both of you. And I think seeing each other hurting makes it harder."

Syd nods again. 

"Are you worried about your session with David?" Amy asks. "Ptonomy will get David ready, and we'll help you get ready. You're not doing this alone. We're all here for both of you."

Syd looks at Amy, then looks around the table. Everyone looks back.

"We're here for you, Syd," Cary says. "Just like we're here for David and Oliver and each other. This is a place of healing for all of us."

Summerland at the heart of Division 3. Syd wants that. She wants to be able to open up to them the way she did yesterday, but that was— That moment is over. Even with Amy holding her— Even with friends around her— 

She's not one of them. She's not part of Summerland. She doesn't belong to this— Circle of healing they have, that David has. And why should she? David's afraid of her. Why did she put love in her foundation? She's just lying to herself again, thinking he still loves her when he can barely stand her presence. No one could love her.

"Broken minds in beautiful bodies," Oliver says, suddenly. "Unable to receive love because of not knowing the self as lovely."

Syd tenses again, stares at him. "You're not supposed to listen."

"Yet hearing is unavoidable," Oliver replies, unbothered. "By any chance— Have you ever been to China?"

"Of course," Syd says, confused. "When we were trying to rescue you? Farouk took you to Buddhist temples to find the monk."

Oliver furrows his brow, concentrating. "Hmm. Will Buddha be acceptable on the stolid planets or will we find Zoroastrian temples flowering on Neptune?"

Cary intervenes. "Oliver, what do you remember about China? Do you remember the temples?"

"What do I remember?" Oliver ruminates. "I remember— A million skeletons in China. Grief. Mud? A great deal of mud."

"Mud?" Cary says, and now he's concentrating. He realizes something. "Oliver, can you remember how you and Melanie met?"

"Was it in China?" Oliver asks. "I thought perhaps she was Chinese."

"You did meet in China," Cary says, and now he's excited. "There was a terrible flood. So many lost their homes, their lives— People came from all over the world to help. You and Melanie met in— I think it was Nanjing?" He closes the album of Oliver's youth and opens another one. He flips to a page. "Ah, here!" He slides the album in front of Oliver. "This is the shelter you both worked at. And here's a group photo of your team. Very international, I believe arrangements were made through the League of Nations? And here's one of just you and Melanie."

Syd looks at the album. There's young Melanie and Oliver, posing for the camera in faded color. A shelter full of bedraggled Chinese, some of them visibly injured. Melanie and Oliver and their whole team look tired but determined. Oliver turns the page, and—

There's a photo of Melanie smiling shyly, looking adoringly at the camera. She's cleaned up, dressed in Chinese apparel. Oliver rests his fingers at the edge of the photo.

"Melanie," Oliver says, quietly. "She didn't believe she could be loved."

Syd stiffens. Everyone notices.

"Oliver, do Syd's thoughts remind you of Melanie's?" Cary asks. "Of how she was when you first met?"

"You were never no locomotive, sunflower," Oliver says to the photograph. "You were a sunflower."

"Syd, is that how you feel?" Amy asks, gently. "That you can't be loved?"

God, Syd hates telepathy. Her mind should be her own, inviolate. No one should be allowed into it, _no one_.

But David's a mind reader. 

He can't hear her thoughts now, but he will. If he keeps getting better, if he can get stable enough, the crown will come off and then—

She'll hurt him.

Even if she can change her behavior, force herself to— She learned to endure touch, but she couldn't learn to enjoy it. Her body wouldn't let her. Her body will never let her. She'll never—

What was it Melanie said? No, Farouk. You can make someone do things, but there's no force on Earth that can make them enjoy it.

"I wouldn't take his advice," Oliver says, and he's looking at her again. "I believe you're meant to be trusting your friends more than your enemies."

"Syd?" Cary asks, concerned.

Syd wants to get up and walk out of the lab and never look back. She wants to walk away from all of this, from supportive environments and caring friends and androids that can touch her. All of this love and softness and— It's not who she is.

But she doesn't want to be who she is anymore. She doesn't want her mother's poison, she doesn't want to be— Alone. She doesn't want to be alone. But not wanting to be alone doesn't help her figure out how to be with people, and not just— In the same room as them.

But right now, being in the same room is as much as she can manage.

David's getting better. But what if she can't? What if he puts all that work into getting better, and then— She's the same?

"Scared, huh?" Lenny asks.

"Of course not," Syd lies.

Lenny's amused. "I've been in your head, too, sister," she says. "Look, I don't like this talking shit either. But you're our patient. Either you talk to us or Oliver starts relaying."

"I don't want that," Syd says, firmly. She absolutely doesn't want her thoughts being sent into the mainframe.

"David didn't want it either," Lenny says. "He didn't want a lot of things. But Division 3 didn't give him a choice."

"I don't have a choice either," Syd says, coldly.

"She says she doesn't have a choice," Lenny says, to the room at large. She focuses back on Syd. Lenny's android is slumped but there's threat in her posture. "Division 3 murdered me to save Amy and they sure as hell didn't ask nicely. David didn't get asked nicely when they knocked him out and shoved him into a cell with that crown on his head. Maybe you think this is like Clockworks and you're just visiting. Well guess what, Miss Perfect? You're not better than us."

"I don't think I'm better than you," Syd defends.

"Really?" Lenny challenges. "Because that's sure what it looks like. You just wanna float along above everyone else. Can't ruin those pretty hands in the dirt."

"I don't have to listen to this," Syd mutters, looking away.

Lenny makes a game-show buzzer sound. "Wrong answer. Guess what? You're not in charge anymore. Let me put this in words I know you understand: _You're_ the song they play outside a hostage crisis to keep criminals from thinking clearly."

Syd glares at her. It wasn't her finest moment, going down to Lenny's cell to sneer at her, but she didn't think Lenny was Lenny. She was trying to protect David.

And then David chose Lenny over her. He chose Lenny to save his life in the desert, and he was going to run away and take Lenny with him. 

"I was trying to protect David," she says.

"So am I," Lenny says. "So are all of us. And we're trying to not die or have our minds dissolved or get tortured for decades. And hey, we're trying to save the world. Or did you ever give a shit about the world?"

"Do you?" Syd retorts.

"Fuck the world," Lenny says. "I'm here for David, sure. But I'm doing this for me. I want that shit beetle dead and I want a new body so I can live. I'd say that's what gets me up in the morning, but I don't sleep anymore. So what gets you going?"

"Saving the world isn't enough?" Syd asks.

"If it was, you wouldn't keep clamming up," Lenny says.

That's not—

Shit. She does keep clamming up. And Ptonomy and Clark— She only made progress because they pried her open. And now it's Lenny's turn, apparently. Even without the relay, they've been studying her, figuring her out. The mainframe has all her case files, it has recordings of her, it has god knows what else. And that’s— She hates how that makes her feel. 

"So what's it gonna be?" Lenny challenges. "You gonna relay for yourself, or does Oliver have to do it?"

"I'll do it," Syd says, even though she absolutely does not want to do it.

"Good," Lenny says. "So what's the advice you're not supposed to be following?"

"You can make someone do something, but you can't make them enjoy it," Syd grits out.

Lenny gestures for Syd to continue.

"David's a mind reader," Syd says, hating herself for admitting any of this. It's pathetic how weak she is. "It doesn't matter how much 'better' I get, he'll always know how I really feel."

"Syd," Cary says. "The point of therapy isn't to make you— Better able to fool people. It's to change how you think. You change your mind and your behavior changes with you."

She doesn't want to change. "Maybe I can't change," she says. 

"How would you know?" Lenny challenges. "You never tried. You weren't in Clockworks to get better."

"Neither were you," Syd says.

"Hey, if the fate of the world rested on me accepting help for my problems, the world would be fucked," Lenny says. "But you and David got the short straws. We got David to start helping himself. Now it's your turn. Tell us what you're really afraid of. And don't say it's David because we both know that's bullshit."

Syd glares at Lenny again. But she knows Lenny is right. She has to start helping herself. She knows how hard it was for everyone, pulling together to keep David alive. She was right there with them, trying desperately to haul him up onto dry land when all he wanted to do was drown.

And now Syd's the one who wants to drown.

Why did David want to die? There were a lot of reasons, but in the end— He was punishing himself. He was making himself suffer because that's what he thought he needed, because that's what he was taught. They both have developmental trauma. So she must be doing her own version of that.

She thinks of the loop of her past. Ptonomy said she was teaching those lessons to herself long before David entered her mind. She was— Giving herself pain, making herself suffer, because—

Because pain makes her strong. Because love makes her weak.

"I'm afraid of being weak," she admits, finally.

Her mom's salons. There were always artists with mustaches and men with money clips, like big game hunters trying to bring them down. The Untouchable Barretts kept their heads instead. But every hunt was a lesson. Every day as an outcast at school was a lesson. Every time her mom looked at her with quiet resentment and had another drink—

Every one of those lessons went into her foundation. 

"The ideas I don’t want,” Syd says. “I took them out of my foundation. But that wasn't enough."

"What did you take out?" Cary asks. 

Syd doesn't want to tell him. Everyone probably already knows, they know everything Ptonomy knows. But she saw with David— It's not about them. 

"Love makes us weak," Syd says, avoiding their eyes. "Pain makes us strong. I don't need help. I'm a victim. I'm not capable of love and I don't deserve it."

"Those are very painful ideas to depend on," Cary says, and he sounds sad. She looks up and sees— Pity? She doesn't want pity. But no, it's— Empathy?

"I never put my foundation into words," Cary continues. "But I think— If I had, it would have included some of those things. Not all of it, but— That suffering will somehow help me. That love isn't something I deserve."

"Cary," Kerry says, reaching for him. 

Cary takes Kerry's hand. "I try not to accept those ideas anymore. But there are moments— Syd, those ideas will never go away, any more than the physical scars we bear. And I think— In many ways, that's the hardest part. We can only truly get better by accepting our wounds and learning to care for them, learning to let others care for them. And it’s okay that it’s hard for you to do those things. Acceptance and compassion, for ourselves and others— Sometimes we have to learn them later in life because we weren’t shown them when we needed them most.”

“But it’s never too late,” Kerry adds, looking at Cary meaningfully. “Because we’re here and we’re together. Right?”

Cary gives her a warm smile. “Absolutely.” He turns back to Syd. “When we gave David his DID diagnosis— You were so afraid it was too late for him. And now I think you’re afraid it’s too late for you. But it isn’t. You don’t deserve to suffer any more than David does, any more than I do. It can be hard for us to love ourselves. When pain has been a refuge— It’s frightening to step into the unknown. But you’re so much more than just your pain. You’re a strong and courageous person. You fight to protect the people you love and the ideals you care about. You’re able to be vulnerable, to give and accept love. Those are wonderful parts of yourself. Love them in yourself the way you would love them in someone else.”

It's more compassion therapy, Syd knows that. But she knows that Cary isn't saying these things out of— It isn't condescension, it isn't judgement, because— He's doing what she needs to do. He's opening up, being vulnerable, trusting. She feels— A sharp pang of envy for him, for the love and trust he and Kerry share, for the fact that he's already done so much and she's barely started.

He's been doing the work for decades. But he's still doing the work because whatever abuse went into his foundation— He can't simply take it out either.

She's been comparing herself to David, to the way he's been building a foundation from scratch. She wants a clean start, too. But David's start is anything but clean. Farouk destroyed who he was. And despite everything he's working towards, he faces that destruction every day, sifting through the rubble, trying to salvage himself, to find— Pieces he can love.

"I don't know how to— Love myself," Syd admits. "Or to be vulnerable or—"

"I think you do," Cary says. "We're all born with the potential for love. But when things go wrong, when those seeds aren't nurtured— They wait until it's safe to grow."

"You and David fell in love in Clockworks," Amy says, and Syd realizes Amy's arm is still around her back, that she never let go. "You must have felt safe there with him, like he did with you."

Safe. Syd's never been safe anywhere.

But David's love made her feel safe. In Clockworks, in Summerland, facing down a monster— She relied on his love just like he relied on hers. A year of waiting made all that fade away, made her pull back into herself, into her pain. Her old refuge.

She pulls into her shell when she doesn't feels safe. That shell is her pain, her isolation; it's all the ways she survived growing up. But she's not a child anymore.

"So I have to— Leave my old refuge," Syd tries. "Allow myself to be weak so I can be— Nurtured. And that will make me strong."

Cary considers this. "Yes, but— If your ideas of weak and strong remains the same— It's likely you'll end up right back where you started."

"Right," Syd says, taking that in. It's not just her foundation and refuge that need to change, it's her goal. It's— Her whole idea of what she's supposed to be. 

And somehow she's supposed to do all of that even though she can't escape everything that got her here in the first place.

"Jesus, how does anyone get better?" Syd mutters.

Cary laughs. "No one ever said change was easy. But speaking from experience— It's worth the effort." He looks at Kerry again as he squeezes her hand. Then he looks back to Syd. "Lenny's right, what you need most is motivation. I care deeply about the world, about mutantkind, but those can feel very abstract. Kerry has always been my true motivation. Even at my most difficult moments, I kept going for her. The Davids seem to have something similar."

"I'm not a system," Syd points out. 

"But you're not alone," Amy counters. "If you can't change for yourself— Change for someone you love. Change so that you can be with them without hurting them, so that— You can be with each other the way you always should have been."

Syd looks at Amy, and realizes— Of course. Amy changed for David so they could forgive each other, so they could— Love each other. They loved each other before, but— They were afraid to open up, to be vulnerable, to risk hurting each other— And by refusing all of that, they hurt each other anyway.

Syd needs a better way to be. And she's starting to figure out what that is. But if there's anyone who understands what she's been through— The difficulty of opening up, of trusting in love, of needing someone and losing them—

Of needing David, hurting him and losing him— And getting him back—

It's Amy.

And if Syd can do this, if David can do this, if they can both get better and survive all of this—

Amy will be family. She'll be the sister Syd never had. Not just— Someone who visits David and makes him sad, or a hostage they have to rescue, or a distant but friendly voice on the other end of the phone. 

If she stays with David, Amy will be her sister.

Maybe she already is. Or she's trying to be. She's trying to give Syd love, like she tried to give Syd love for the long year David was gone. But Syd couldn't let herself accept it.

She's accepting it now, letting Amy hold her to treat her touch starvation. She's accepting their compassion therapy.

Syd wants to get better for David, but— Things between them are still so difficult. Maybe— Even if she and Amy aren't sisters, they can be—

"Amy, um," Syd starts. It's hard to be vulnerable, but— She knows what genuine vulnerability looks like. It looks like David. So if she wants to be vulnerable, she just has to— Be David. "I know it sounds, um, kinda weird, but— Will you be my friend?"

Amy looks absolutely touched. "I'd be honored, as long as— You'll be my friend?"

Trust is a two-way street. If Syd opens up to someone, they'll open up to her. 

"I will," Syd says, and it feels like a solid step onto dry land.


	83. Day 11: The person who knows what's best for you— Is you.

He has the right to say no. He has the right to say no.

David knows that's not entirely true. If he had the right to say no, he wouldn't have been forced into therapy in the first place. He absolutely said no to therapy in that courtroom and no one listened. So it's obviously— A lot more complicated than that.

But where he is right now— They're trying to teach him the basics. He gets that. They're trying to teach him to be healthy, to have boundaries, to— Not just blame himself for everything that goes wrong. To not just do whatever he's told even though it hurts him, _because_ it hurts him. He has to be able to say no. He has to be able to know when he needs to say no. 

Like knowing when his thoughts are hurting him. Like knowing when he's having a shame attack. Like knowing when things are too much and he needs to ask for help so he doesn't go away. Like knowing when he's dissociating because he's scared.

He's trying. With all of that, he's trying, even though he's still really terrible at it. 

He's not doing this alone. He's strong enough to heal. He belongs to himself.

"Okay," David says, and looks up from his notebook. "I'm ready."

Ptonomy waves Syd over. She has her own notebook with her. She sets it down in front of her when she sits at the round table. The three of them are positioned so there's an equal amount of space between them. Divad and Dvd are back on their benches with their own notebooks.

Everyone has a notebook. Everyone's doing the work. Ptonomy says it will be easier if they do it together. So here he and Syd are, doing the work together. 

"Syd, David," Ptonomy says. "How about each of you says how you're feeling right now, and where you are in your therapy. Syd, would you like to start?"

"Okay," Syd says. She meets David's eyes. "Right now I'm feeling— Vulnerable. And it's hard, feeling this way. But I have to— Open myself up. To my friends, to other ways of being than— What I was taught. I don't want to be how I was."

"Very good," Ptonomy says. "David, it's your turn."

David takes a steadying breath and looks down at his notebook. He feels a lot of things, but— "I feel vulnerable, too. But I guess that's— Usually how I feel, so—" He tries again. "I'm trying to be healthy, to not— Punish myself or let other people punish me. And that's—" He's strong enough to heal. "That probably shouldn't be so hard. But it is and I'm— Afraid. Because I don't even know when I'm doing it."

"That's a scary thing," Ptonomy agrees. "But you're learning to recognize it. As you recognize it, you'll learn to refuse that behavior, to say no. And you have us to help you. You're not doing this alone."

David nods. He's not doing this alone.

"Is that what's scaring you about talking to Syd?" Ptonomy asks. 

David nods again.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "How about we give Syd a chance to respond to that?"

David looks at Syd. She looks— Not as guarded as she usually is. Vulnerable. Not— David-levels of vulnerable, but— 

He realizes Ptonomy is waiting for his permission. "Okay," he says.

"David," Syd starts. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I made you hurt yourself. I don't want to do those things anymore either. I'm trying to get better and— I hope you'll give me the chance to show you that."

David looks down at his notebook again. He looks at what he wrote about love, about what to do when he doesn't feel loved.

When he woke up in Division 3, when he saw Syd again— He knew there were problems. There were problems from the moment Syd saw him and said 'you left me.' But he just wanted things to be the way they were before. He wanted to be happy with her. But the problems got bigger and bigger, and they couldn't ask for help, and— She kept hurting him. Accusing him, punishing him, thinking terrible things she must have known he could hear. And he just took it, what choice did he have?

He has a choice now. Supposedly. If someone won't stop hurting him, he should reject them.

But Syd's accepting help. She has her notebook, she's trying to get better. She's having sessions with Ptonomy, she's working on her foundation, trying to resolve her trauma. She's as much a patient as he is.

He knows what it's like to be— Stuck in his trauma. He knows how hard it is to change. But here they are, changing. And they've both made mistakes, they've both hurt each other. She said she forgives him. He needs to try to forgive her.

"Okay," David says, still wary but— Lowering his guard. 

Syd gives him a little smile for that, and it makes David's chest go tight with— Longing and love and fear and need and hurt and— He feels so much he can't breathe, it's so much. 

What he feels for her— It takes him over and he can't control it, he can't protect himself. All from just— A little smile. 

"David?" Ptonomy prompts, concerned.

"Um." David realizes he's crying again. “Sorry.” He wipes the tears away but they keep coming. 

“It’s okay,” Ptonomy soothes. He nudges the tissue box and David takes it. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s safe to let it out.”

Is it? It doesn’t feel safe. He shakes his head. 

“Would it help if Syd stepped away?” Ptonomy asks. 

David nods and grabs another tissue. 

“Okay,” Ptonomy says. “Syd, could you give us a moment?”

“Sure,” Syd says. She looks at David, hesitates, then picks up her notebook and stands.

“Go wait with Amy,” Ptonomy says. “She’s just where you left her.”

When the door to the stairs closes, a sob bursts out of David’s throat. 

“Take your time,” Ptonomy soothes. 

David struggles to pull himself back together. How is he going to make any progress if he keeps breaking down? How many different ways is he capable of falling apart? Is he going to go through every single one of them? He's definitely going through all of the tissues.

But the tears finally taper off. David gives a little hiccup as he scrunches all the used tissues together so they don't blow away. They should have brought up some water, he's so thirsty. Maybe it would be better not to have his sessions in the garden. He needs too much infrastructure.

"Better?" Ptonomy asks.

David nods.

"Okay. Let's talk about what just happened."

David wishes they didn't have to. He wishes the relay was on. He wishes a lot of things. But here he is, trying to heal. They have to keep going.

“When you agreed to give Syd another chance,” Ptonomy says. “Why did that upset you?"

"I love her," David starts, then tries again. "I still— That should be a good thing? But—"

"You're afraid," Ptonomy finishes for him. "Okay. I think— This is like the possession trauma. You haven't processed what happened between you two. All those feelings are very raw. And because you still love Syd— You feel like that means you have to be together again, and that's scary for you. Is that right?"

David nods.

"Let's take this one at a time, just like we did before," Ptonomy says. "Syd told you she loves you. You've acknowledged that you love her. But that doesn't mean either of you has to act on those feelings. If you're not ready to be with her, you don't have to be. But I think it would be good to tell her how you feel."

"But if she knows—"

"Then she knows," Ptonomy says. "Nothing will happen without your consent. But bottling up your feelings won't help."

That makes sense. And— He has too many suppressed feelings already, he can’t make more. "Okay."

Ptonomy nods. "Let's take the next one. You need to process what happened between you two. I think it would be good to do some of that with Syd, but— We can also do it without her. How about we do a private session first, then see how you feel?"

"Okay," David says. He has no idea how they'll fit all this in, but at least that's one thing he doesn't have to worry about.

"The last one is the tough one," Ptonomy says. "I need you to tell me exactly what you're afraid of."

David groans. 

Ptonomy chuckles. "You've got this. Come on. When you agreed to give her another chance, what did you feel?”

"Like I was giving up control," David admits, and a few more tears straggle out. "What if that's— Part of the re-enactment? What if everything I do is just— What he did to me? I can't remember."

"I wish we could rule that out," Ptonomy says. "But this is like your cocktail memories. There's good and bad mixed together in those re-enactments. Part of your therapy will be to process all that so you can change what you need to change, but also so you can accept what you have."

David sighs. "I really am going to be doing this forever." 

Ptonomy smiles again. "You have more work to do than most. But everyone's life is full of change and challenge. We all have to do the work of helping ourselves be the people we want to be. If we don't, we let other people decide that for us. And the person who knows what's best for you— Is you."

David scoffs at that. "I'm the last person who knows that."

"You never had the chance to decide for yourself or even understand yourself," Ptonomy points out. "But you're learning to understand yourself now. The more we put you back together, the more you'll be able to make those decisions, the more you'll trust yourself to make them."

That all sounds staggeringly optimistic to David. But somehow— He can see a glimpse of it from where he is now. A very, very distant speck of daylight at the top of the bottomless pit they're rescuing him from.

"Maybe," David allows. 

Ptonomy chuckles. "We've come a long way to get to maybe. How about we keep going? Are you ready to talk to Syd again?"

David nods, and after a minute, Syd comes back out. She looks more cautious than she did before. Not that she was resoundingly confident before David burst into tears. Now that he's calmer, he can see that this is just as hard for her as it is for him. Maybe not the— Amnesia and torture part, but— 

He musters a smile for her as she approaches the table, and she relaxes.

"Syd, how are you feeling?" Ptonomy asks.

"I'm okay," Syd says, quietly. "Just worried. David, are you okay?"

"No worse than usual," David admits. "Sorry, I've been— Kind of an ongoing disaster."

"I think you're doing amazing," Syd says.

"Really?" David asks, surprised.

"Really," Syd says. "Therapy's a lot harder when you actually mean it."

That drags a dry laugh out of David. "Ptonomy doesn't pull his punches."

"He doesn't," Syd agrees. "But you're the one doing the work. I know I've been— Giving you a lot of space. I was so afraid for you. And now— You're really getting better."

That means a lot, coming from Syd. He meets her eyes, and— It doesn't change anything about what happened, it doesn't magically clear away all the things he has to work through. But he doesn't feel so afraid anymore.

She loves him. And he loves her. That's— That's okay. They can just— Feel that, without doing anything else.

"Syd," he starts. "I got upset because— I love you. I still— But I'm not ready to be with you, I'm not— Able to do that. And maybe I will be, but— Can we just—"

"Of course," Syd says, and— She seems relieved, too? "I think we both have a lot of work to do. But thank you. For telling me. It means a lot." 

He looks into her eyes, and— He can see that she means it. He doesn't need to hear her thoughts to know because she's not hiding how she feels. She's always been so guarded, especially since he came back. It's striking, seeing her— Vulnerable. It makes him want to take care of her.

That’s not how they worked, before. Even before the orb. Syd took care of him, protected him, even once they knew about his powers. He liked that, he liked the way— She made him feel safe. He missed it when he came back and it was gone.

But— That’s part of his re-enactment. With Amy, his brothers— They can’t work that way anymore. He and Syd— If they’re going to be together, they need healthy multiplicity, too. Their relationship needs to be reciprocal and honest. It needs to be okay for them to tell each other things that are upsetting.

"Ptonomy says I need to process our relationship," David says. "Maybe, um— When I'm ready, we can do some of that together?"

"I'd like that," Syd says, giving him another little smile. It makes David's heart hurt, but his feelings don't overwhelm him like before. She's so beautiful, he missed being able to look at her without— Only seeing what went wrong. 

She loves him. He loves her. He couldn't let himself feel that for what seemed like forever, it hurt too much. Being able to feel it now— It still hurts, but— It's like getting a piece of himself back.

Like getting Amy and Lenny back. Like starting a new system with his brothers. They have a lot of work to do, but— It's easier when they do it together. 

“And maybe you could— Share some of your therapy with me?” David asks. “Not if you don’t want to.”

"I want to," Syd says. "Maybe— You could help me with something now?"

"Um, sure," David says, surprised.

"I made a list." Syd opens her notebook and slides it over. "These are all the things I need to do so I can get better. Everyone's helping me, and I thought— Maybe you could help me with my mantra. It's kinda your thing."

David looks at the list.

_Accept help._  
Leave my old refuge.  
Be open and vulnerable.  
Find my motivation.  
Build my new foundation.  
Create my mantra.  
Figure out who I'm supposed to be.  
Accept my wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them.  
Learn acceptance and compassion for myself and others. 

"Wow, that's— A lot," he says, taken aback.

Syd's amused by that. "David, those are all things you've done, or you're doing. They're how you're getting better. And I want to be better, too, so— I have to do them. I have to accept help." 

"'Leave my old refuge?'" David asks. "What's that?"

"Cary came up with the name," Syd says. "But it's— Leaving behind our old coping mechanisms. The ones that make us hurt ourselves. Self-punishment, isolation—"

"Traumatic re-enactment," David says. "That's, um, what Ptonomy calls it. When we try to— Relive our trauma."

"Yeah," Syd agrees. "The next one— I know for you, being open and vulnerable— It's not as difficult as it is for me."

Opening up been anything but easy for him. He struggles with it all the time. "You don't need to have people reading your mind so you can get better," David points out.

"Opening up can be difficult for everyone," Ptonomy says, gently intervening. "What's important is that we all keep trying. May I see?” At Syd’s nod David slides over the notebook. "This is very impressive work, Syd."

"I want to get better," she says, looking at David, and— 

Her eyes fill with need, so much it reminds him of Dvd, of the pressure to— Surrender himself, to let Syd or Dvd define their relationship and him along with it.

He can't do that anymore. He can't just be what everyone else wants him to be. He has to be his own David. He has to have boundaries. He has to say no to things that make him uncomfortable.

But he can't say no to Syd. He can't— Push her away when that's all he's been doing. He loves her. She loves him. She just said how hard it is for her to open up, to show her feelings, and he can't— Reject her for showing her feelings. He can't hurt her, he's already hurt her so much. If she needs him— Of course he should take her back, of course he should— 

No, he has to— 

He looks at his notebook. He has the right to say no. And Ptonomy said— If he's uncomfortable, he should step back and ask for help. But he's not even sure what he's asking for help with. Being looked at? Being loved? All of this would be so much easier if the relay was on.

He doesn't want to go back to the way they were. Syd doesn't want that either. Their relationship has to be— Like Amy, like his system. Reciprocal. Not just them taking care of him because he's broken. And if Syd has developmental trauma, too— Then they match. They're equals. So he should— Try to take care of her.

That's— He can do that. He wants to.

"Um, you said you wanted help with your mantra?" he asks, looking up again, and feels like he just pulled himself back from the edge of a cliff. Disoriented, but— Relieved and vaguely triumphant.

While he was struggling with his thoughts, the intensity in Syd's eyes faded into worry. But she quickly collects herself. "Yeah," she says. "Um, to help me keep going when it feels difficult. So I can accept help, open up, and trust. Ptonomy said it should be something reassuring, like yours."

"I've got two now," David admits. "I'm not doing this alone. That's the new one." He gives Ptonomy a self-effacing glance. 

"Syd," Ptonomy says. "Why don't you try saying David's mantra, see how it makes you feel? David, can you show Syd your mantra?"

"Um, okay." David opens his notebook to his last round of foundation work and slides it over. He watches as she reads it and tries not to feel nervous. That's basically his entire new self, the little he's been able to cobble together. It's all he has but he knows it isn't much. His life on half a page. He doesn't even have a list like Syd does, for all his therapy goals. He just does whatever they tell him, if he can even manage that much. What was it that Syd's book said about DID identities like him? Syd has his notebook, he can't flip back to check. But passive was definitely in there. Depressed, guilty. What was the other one? He can't remember. He didn't want to think about that. How could he ever help her? He's just a dissociative mess, nothing in his notebook could possibly be relevant to Syd.

Syd finally looks up. "David, would it be okay if I copy some of this? I think it would be helpful for me."

Oh. Okay, maybe there's something she found a tiny bit useful. They're all other people's ideas anyway. It makes sense that she'd— Want something from Cary or— He looks to Ptonomy, uncertain, and Ptonomy nods. "Um, sure," David says, looking back to her. "What do you, um—"

Syd looks over the page, then back up at him. "Actually— All of it? And I think— Ptonomy— I think you were wrong. My mantra doesn't need to be reassuring. What works for David doesn't work for me." 

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So what will help you keep going?"

Syd looks at both notebooks, visibly thinking.

"Survival," she answers. "David is love, but— I'm survival. That's what will keep me going. It always has. But before— I thought I had to survive on my own. That idea was wrong." She meets David's eyes. "I can survive better with the people I care about. I can learn to be with them. I can protect them and they can protect me."

Reciprocal. David feels better, hearing Syd say that. He wants to be able to help her, to help all the people he loves. That's all he's ever wanted. It's also the one thing he could never do, because he was sick, he was crazy, he had a monster in his head making sure he'd never be healthy enough to help anyone, not even himself.

But the monster is out. Not gone, not yet, but— His mind is his own. His system's mind, their body— It's their own. And he's getting better.

"Our foundations are about who we are, right?" Syd asks him. "And our mantras are what keep us going?"

"Basically," David says. "It could be whatever you want, but— That's what works for me."

Syd thinks about that, and then— "I am survival," she says, writing in her notebook. "Love helps me survive. I can accept help. I can give and receive love."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, pleased. "And your mantra? What works for that?"

"Not reassurance," Syd says. "Lessons. I need to teach myself to be who I want to be, right? So—" She writes again. "Love makes me strong. Pain makes me weak. Trust my friends, not my enemies."

David considers all of that. "I guess— My mantras are lessons, too," he realizes. More reassuring lessons, certainly. But they're— How he's been teaching himself to be the kind of person he wants to be. To stay alive, free himself from his shame, accept his wounds— To have compassion for himself. "Syd, after you're done, could I— Copy your list? I think— It would be helpful for me."

He gives her a shy smile and she smiles back. He's not sure he can survive having her smiles back, but he's not sure how he survived without them.


	84. Day 11: It’s like a single firework exploding in her heart.

"You'll be okay," Amy assures Syd, as they stand at the base of the steps to the roof. They're waiting together while David does his foundation work between sessions. 

Syd runs through her own foundation. She can accept help. Life is war and we have to survive. She is loved. 

It doesn't feel like enough. It isn't enough. David didn't build his foundation overnight, but he accepted anything that helped him. She needs to start building hers the same way. But David is used to accepting help. She isn't, even though she's accepted that she needs it. 

She did write something new in her notebook before they got the signal to head up. She made a list of everything she has to do to get better.

_Accept help._  
Leave my old refuge.  
Be open and vulnerable.  
Find my motivation.  
Build my new foundation.  
Create my mantra.  
Figure out who I'm supposed to be.  
Accept my wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them.  
Learn acceptance and compassion for myself and others. 

She can see now why David took a lot of ideas from Cary when he was just starting, and why his system looks to Cary and Kerry as a model. Cary isn't a therapist but he's one of Oliver and Melanie's oldest patients as well as their friend. He's been living the work they started with him for decades. He has a lot of hard-earned wisdom and he wants to share it. Syd's always respected Cary's technical skills, but now—

It's funny. Ptonomy used to be the memory guy, but it turned out being the memory guy only held him back. Maybe being the lab guy holds Cary back from his own potential. Kerry's just as busy redefining herself as David is. And Amy and Lenny— Both of them have gone through so much, but instead of drowning in their pain, they're using it as motivation: to save David, to stop Farouk, to save the world.

And here Syd is, lagging behind all of them.

Well, maybe she's not entirely at the back of the line. Oliver might have finally slept, but he's still in bad shape. She's missed a lot of Dvd and Divad's progress, but while Dvd seems to be making strides, it’s obvious that Divad has a long way to go.

It's therapy, not a race. But knowing some part of David is struggling as much as she is— It helps her feel less alone.

"David's almost ready," Amy says, pulling Syd from her thoughts. "Ptonomy says to come outside but wait for him to wave you over."

Syd looks up at the door at the top of the stairs. She looks back at Amy.

"Um, could we—" Syd starts, and falteringly lifts her arms. She's entirely unused to asking for touch, but now that she can have it— She feels like a junkie all over again, craving another hit, just like she did with David.

Thankfully, Amy is a generous dealer with an endless supply of free hugs. She holds Syd against her body and Syd soaks up her touch like a sponge. When Amy holds her like this, it doesn't just ease the hunger in her skin. It helps fill the vast, empty ache in her chest.

"Better?" Amy asks, when Syd pulls away.

Syd manages a small smile. "Thanks," she says, shyly. If she didn't know that touch helped Amy as much as her and David, Syd would feel utterly selfish. But hugging Amy helps her fight her detachment syndrome. So it's good for all of them, at least for now. Syd should get her fill while she can.

Syd adjusts her grip on her notebook and heads up to the roof. David and Ptonomy are sitting at the table together. David has his notebook open but his eyes are closed in concentration. Syd watches him. She's always liked watching him, especially when touch was nothing but a fantasy for them. His expressiveness, not just in his face but his whole body— She started drawing him so she could capture it, understand it better. The way he can hold himself loose and easy, or pull into himself with anxiety or fear— Or sometimes calm. So many times she watched him sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, his eyes closed as he lost himself in daydreams. He would go away into his own little world, and usually she would coax him back out again. But more than anything she wanted to follow him, to share his dreams with him. To be the palm tree on his island.

That desire became real. She could have it back again. She could have everything she had with David back again. Now that she knows there's a chance— It's hard not to feel desperate for another hit.

David opens his eyes and looks up from his notebook. Ptonomy turns to Syd and waves her over.

There are three separate benches around the circular table. Syd takes the empty one, giving David plenty of personal space. No matter how much she wants to be with him, she has to be careful. Pushing David has only forced him further away.

Syd sets her notebook in front of her. David looks at it with some kind of longing, but he doesn't say anything.

"Syd, David," Ptonomy says. "How about each of you says how you're feeling right now, and where you are in your therapy. Syd, would you like to start?"

"Okay," Syd says. She meets David's eyes. "Right now I'm feeling— Vulnerable. And it's hard, feeling this way. But I have to— Open myself up. To my friends, to other ways of being than— What I was taught. I don't want to be how I was."

"Very good," Ptonomy says. "David, it's your turn."

David takes a steadying breath and looks down at his notebook. "I feel vulnerable, too. But I guess that's— Usually how I feel, so—" He's struggling. "I'm trying to be healthy, to not— Punish myself or let other people punish me. And that's— That probably shouldn't be so hard. But it is and I'm— Afraid. Because I don't even know when I'm doing it."

He's so vulnerable, so emotionally raw. He makes Syd feel so many things, the same way he always has. She thinks of how it felt to sit with him by the lake in Summerland and promise she'd protect him. She wanted to always keep that promise.

"That's a scary thing," Ptonomy agrees. "But you're learning to recognize it. As you recognize it, you'll learn to refuse that behavior, to say no. And you have us to help you. You're not doing this alone."

David nods. 

"Is that what's scaring you about talking to Syd?" Ptonomy asks. 

David nods again.

The warm glow of her memory cuts out like it's been splashed with ice water.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "How about we give Syd a chance to respond to that?"

They both turn to look at her. David meets her eyes again, looks into them like he's searching for something. Syd resists the urge to pull back into her shell. If she goes into that refuge—

Genuine vulnerability. She knows what genuine vulnerability looks like. It looks like David. So she just has to be like David.

Easier said than done. But she’s trying and apparently it's enough.

"Okay," David says.

This is Syd's chance to start them off right. She can't afford to waste it. She needs to let him know that he doesn't have to be afraid of her anymore. She needs to show him that she's doing the work, that she's putting everything she has into getting better, just like he is.

"David," she starts. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I made you hurt yourself. I don't want to do those things anymore either. I'm trying to get better and— I hope you'll give me the chance to show you that."

David listens, then he looks down at his notebook again. Syd holds her breath, waiting as she watches him process. She sees flashes of all kinds of emotions, like she has before when she's tried to reconnect with him, and then—

"Okay," David says, wary but— Hopeful?

She can work with hopeful. She definitely can. She gives a little smile, deeply relieved, and then—

Tears start pouring from David's eyes. Oh god. Her heart sinks again.

"David?" Ptonomy prompts, concerned.

"Um." David belatedly realizes he's crying. “Sorry.” He wipes the tears away but they keep coming. 

“It’s okay,” Ptonomy soothes. He nudges the tissue box and David takes it. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s safe to let it out.”

He shakes his head, refusing. 

“Would it help if Syd stepped away?” Ptonomy asks. 

David nods and grabs another tissue. 

“Okay,” Ptonomy says. “Syd, could you give us a moment?”

“Sure,” Syd says, but inside she's dying. She knows David's delicate right now, Ptonomy warned her that he had a shame attack just before breakfast, but if they can't even have a conversation without him falling apart—

She has to trust that Ptonomy can handle this. That's the only hope she has. She picks up her notebook and stands.

“Go wait with Amy,” Ptonomy says, calmly. “She’s just where you left her.”

As the door closes behind her, she hears David sob. It's all she can do not to break into tears herself.

She just wanted to protect him. But she broke her promise, over and over. And her fucking future self— She doesn't know which version of herself she's angrier with. Maybe David was right to be confused. Maybe there's no difference between the two Syds at all.

"Syd?" Amy calls.

Syd pulls herself back together and gets to the bottom of the stairs.

"I saw," Amy says, and holds out her arms again.

Syd doesn't have it in her to even try to refuse. 

"I just want him back," she whispers, feeling Amy's arms around her back, Amy's hair against her cheek. 

"I know," Amy murmurs. 

When Syd pulls back, Amy sits down on a step and gestures for Syd to sit beside her. Syd does, and Amy puts her arm around Syd’s back. It helps.

“You can see what’s happening,” Syd says, glumly. “Does he hate me?”

“Of course not,” Amy says, with gentle amusement. “He’s just— Tangled up. Ptonomy’s helping him untangle. Maybe— You can tell your friend how you’re feeling?”

Amy’s her friend. Syd asked for that and Amy agreed. That should mean— It’s safe to tell Amy things, even about David. Amy understands what it’s like to be the one who makes David cry.

“Yeah, um.” Syd sniffs and brushes back her hair. “I feel like a monster,” she admits. 

Amy looks at her with understanding. “Did David ever tell you about the day I took him to Clockworks?”

Syd shakes her head. She knows David attacked Doctor Poole, she knows he tried to kill himself. But he never talked about the day he was committed.

“He didn’t want to go,” Amy says, and there’s a quiet, old pain in her voice, in her eyes. “I promised him it would only be a few weeks. I felt like a monster, lying to him like that. And every time I visited him and he asked if he could come home, I’d lie to him again. I’d smile for him because I didn’t want him to feel sad and— I’d get to the car and then I’d cry, feeling like a monster. And while I was feeling sorry for myself, David was being— People were hurting him. And it would have been so much worse if he didn’t have his brothers.” She pauses before continuing. “I’ve thought a lot about those visits. I want to talk to David about them, but— I’m still afraid of hurting him. And we have so little time left.” She sniffs and wipes at her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to let all that out.”

Syd takes that in. “How much time?” 

“We don’t know, but— Days. A week, maybe two before—“

“What about the backup?” Syd asks.

“Our minds can be backed up, our memories, but— Not our souls,” Amy says. “There’s a lot we can’t tell David because we need him to stay focused on his recovery. That has to be the priority. But you need to understand how serious this is.”

“And Ptonomy and Lenny?” Syd asks.

Amy nods. “These androids help a lot, but without our bodies to return to—“

“And I’m part of David’s recovery,” Syd says.

“If something happens to the mainframe or our minds drift— The Davids won’t have us. They’ll have you, Oliver, Cary, and Kerry. Kerry has been so good for them, and Cary and Oliver will do everything they can, but— Love is how David survives. And as strong as David’s love is for me and Lenny, it’s strongest for you.”

“David looked at me and broke into tears,” Syd points out.

“Because he feels so much for you it overwhelms him,” Amy says. “He cries out of love. We both need to accept his tears for what they are. Not a rejection, but— The opposite. We need to love his pain as much as his joy. Not like Farouk, but— If we accept David’s sadness and grief as part of his love— Maybe we can both stop being afraid.”

Syd stares at Amy. “You’re kind of amazing.”

Amy laughs. “Being disembodied gives me a lot of time to think. And a clear head, at least for now. I’ve always let my fear control me. I don’t want to do that anymore. I think you feel the same way.”

“Yeah,” Syd admits. “Easier said than done, but— It’s about trying, right? So we just have to keep trying.”

“That’s all we can do,” Amy agrees. “You know, when Ptonomy brought me into the mainframe, he said: If we all work together, we can win. But we have to help David the way he should have been helped from the start. And sometimes that means hurting him. Making him process his trauma— He’s suffered so much. But that pain has helped him heal. So we shouldn’t be afraid of our own pain either.”

“You don’t ask for much,” Syd says.

“No one ever said saving the world was easy,” Amy replies. “But I want to live, just like Lenny does. I want my family and friends to be happy and safe. That’s enough for me. I hope it’s enough for you.”

Syd’s still thinking about all of that when Amy says that David is ready for her again. Syd and Amy hug again before she goes up, like before, but this time it feels like it’s truly for both of them.

Pain and grief and sadness as— Part of love, part of healing. And Amy’s story about Clockworks— 

Syd’s only just come to accept that what her mother did to her was abuse. It’s hard to accept that pain can be a good thing when she’s trying to teach herself that pain can’t be her refuge. But yet again, she only has to look at David. He cried out his feelings, talked them through with Ptonomy, and now—

As she approaches the table, he smiles for her. And the tight, fearful clench around Syd’s heart relaxes.

She can do this. She sits down, feeling calm.

"Syd, how are you feeling?" Ptonomy asks.

"I'm okay," Syd says, and it’s true. "Just worried. David, are you okay?"

"No worse than usual," David admits. "Sorry, I've been— Kind of an ongoing disaster."

"I think you're doing amazing," Syd says.

"Really?" David asks, surprised.

"Really," Syd says. "Therapy's a lot harder when you actually mean it."

That drags a dry laugh out of David. "Ptonomy doesn't pull his punches."

"He doesn't," Syd agrees. "But you're the one doing the work. I know I've been— Giving you a lot of space. I was so afraid for you. And now— You're really getting better."

He really is getting better. She once thought he couldn’t be saved, but they’re helping him save himself.

David meets her eyes and doesn't look away. The fear fades and it's like the clouds parting for the sun, seeing the love shine in him.

She doesn’t know what Ptonomy said to David, but damn if being the memory guy wasn’t holding him back. She wonders what she could be, if she gives herself the chance.

"Syd," David starts. "I got upset because— I love you. I still—”

He loves her. It’s like a single firework exploding in her heart, shocking and beautiful and brief. 

David continues. “But I'm not ready to be with you, I'm not— Able to do that. And maybe I will be, but— Can we just—"

"Of course," Syd says, and honestly that’s what she needs, too. As much as she wants him, they have to do this right. "I think we both have a lot of work to do. But thank you. For telling me. It means a lot." 

He looks into her eyes again, seeking something. Knowing that he loves her, hearing him say it, seeing that love in him— It's easier for her to stay out of her shell. Being known is still terrifying, but— She wants him to know her. She always did, but she let her fear control her, force her back into her refuge.

"Ptonomy says I need to process our relationship," David says. "Maybe, um— When I'm ready, we can do some of that together?"

"I'd like that," Syd says, giving him another little smile. When she does, she can see how it affects him. He's wide open, and there's pain and fear but so much love. She knows how it feels to have all that love, and getting it back even this much—

“And maybe you could— Share some of your therapy with me?” David asks. “Not if you don’t want to.”

David's love made her feel safe when nothing was safe. It still does. Of course she can talk to him. 

"I want to," Syd says. "Maybe— You could help me with something now?"

"Um, sure," David says, surprised.

"I made a list." Syd opens her notebook and slides it over. "These are all the things I need to do so I can get better. Everyone's helping me, and I thought— Maybe you could help me with my mantra. It's kinda your thing."

David reads the list. "Wow, that's— A lot," he says, taken aback.

Syd's fondly amused. He's still so terrible at seeing himself. "David, those are all things you've done, or you're doing. They're how you're getting better. And I want to be better, too, so— I have to do them. I have to accept help." 

"'Leave my old refuge?'" David asks. "What's that?"

"Cary came up with the name," Syd says. "But it's— Leaving behind our old coping mechanisms. The ones that make us hurt ourselves. Self-punishment, isolation—"

"Traumatic re-enactment," David says. "That's, um, what Ptonomy calls it. When we try to— Relive our trauma."

"Yeah," Syd agrees, and makes a mental note to look up traumatic re-enactment later. "The next one— I know for you, being open and vulnerable— It's not as difficult as it is for me."

"You don't need to have people reading your mind so you can get better," David points out.

"Opening up can be difficult for everyone," Ptonomy says, gently intervening. "What's important is that we all keep trying. May I see?” At Syd’s nod David slides over the notebook. "This is very impressive work, Syd."

"I want to get better," she says, looking at David. Letting him see how she feels, letting herself feel how much she needs him. She forgot how powerful that need is, how addictive. She was always fighting it, trying to stay in control of herself, trying to deny the hold it had over her. Losing it and getting it back— It's almost too much for her.

It's definitely too much for David. He breaks away, looking at his notebook instead. He struggles with something, and for a moment Syd’s worried he's going to have another breakdown. But he calms and looks up. "Um, you said you wanted help with your mantra?"

Whatever just happened, Syd's just relieved he didn't break into tears. "Yeah," she says. "Um, to help me keep going when it feels difficult. So I can accept help, open up, and trust. Ptonomy said it should be something reassuring, like yours."

"I've got two now," David tells her. "I'm not doing this alone. That's the new one." He glances at Ptonomy.

"Syd," Ptonomy says, turning to her. "Why don't you try saying David's mantra, see how it makes you feel? David, can you show Syd your mantra?"

"Um, okay." David opens his notebook and slides it over.

There's more than just David's mantras on the page. There's his foundation, his wish list, and now a section about love and— Boundaries? Ptonomy really isn't wasting any time. But after what Amy said about how little time they have— He must be trying to cram as many healthy ideas into David as he can before—

God, they really might—

It hits her, finally, how important this is, what they're doing. Why they have to push so hard. Focusing on herself, her problems, her past— She lost sight of the big picture. David already has more than enough motivation, and he's pushing as hard as he can, even too hard. What he needs to heal is— As much love and safety as they can give him. They can't lie to him, not with Farouk around, looking for lies to exploit. So everyone's been telling him as much of the truth as they can, but softening it because he can only take so much. And because she isolated herself in the refuge of her pain, she got the same softened truths he did.

It stopped feeling real, the danger they're in. In creating an environment tailored to David, in making him feel safe enough to heal, they made her feel too safe. The things that pushed her to move forward— Anger, threats, danger— 

She's been looking for motivation but it's in her foundation already. She has to survive— _They all _have to survive. And surviving means getting better so she can protect David and— Her friends. Her potential family. Farouk's been keeping his distance, but he hasn't just been watching them. He's been attacking David, trying to get back inside him, torturing him with nightmares— But Divad and Dvd are the ones stopping all of that. What did David call it, the invisible war? That war has been raging right in front of her, but she couldn't see it so it wasn't real to her.__

__Feeling David's love again, accepting touch and friendship and help— All the things she's finally accepting that she needs— She'll lose them all to Farouk if she doesn't get better._ _

__"David, would it be okay if I copy some of this?" she asks. "I think it would be helpful for me."_ _

__David looks to Ptonomy, uncertain, but Ptonomy nods. "Um, sure," David says, looking back to her. "What do you, um—"_ _

__Syd looks over the page, all that condensed wisdom poured into David from everyone trying to help him. "Actually— All of it? And I think— Ptonomy— I think you were wrong. My mantra doesn't need to be reassuring. What works for David doesn't work for me."_ _

__"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So what will help you keep going?"_ _

__Syd looks at both notebooks and thinks about that. She needs to feel loved, she needs touch and friendship, she needs David. David is her motivation, she feels that again. But so are Amy and Ptonomy and all her friends. She doesn't want to be alone, she doesn't want to hide in her pain, she doesn't want to lose the good things she's only just realizing she has._ _

__"Survival," she answers. "David is love, but— I'm survival. That's what will keep me going. It always has. But before— I thought I had to survive on my own. That idea was wrong." She meets David's eyes. "I can survive better with the people I care about. I can learn to be with them. I can protect them and they can protect me."_ _

__She looks over her foundation again. She can accept help. Life is war and we have to survive. She is loved. The words haven't changed but those ideas have a deeper meaning to her now._ _

__"Our foundations are about who we are, right?" Syd asks David. "And our mantras are what keep us going?"_ _

__"Basically," David says. "It could be whatever you want, but— That's what works for me."_ _

__That's what works for David. What works for her?_ _

__Survival. But not her old survival._ _

__"I am survival," Syd writes in her notebook. "Love helps me survive. I can accept help. I can give and receive love."_ _

__Yes. That feels better._ _

__"Okay," Ptonomy says, pleased. "And your mantra? What works for that?"_ _

__"Not reassurance," Syd says. She thinks back over the past days, about the lessons she was trying to teach herself in her loop. She needs to teach herself new lessons._ _

__"Lessons," she decides. "I need to teach myself to be who I want to be, right? So—" She moves to the next line on the page. "Love makes me strong. Pain makes me weak. Trust my friends, not my enemies."_ _

__That feels right. Everything she needs to do, all that openness and acceptance and compassion— If it helps her love and be loved, it will make her strong. If it's about self-punishment, re-enactment, it will make her weak, vulnerable to Farouk's exploitation. And most importantly, she has to trust her friends, not her enemies. She has to stop accepting the monster's truths as her own._ _

__Her words have a visible impact on David. "I guess— My mantras are lessons, too," he realizes. "Syd, after you're done, could I— Copy your list? I think— It would be helpful for me."_ _

__He gives her a shy smile and she smiles back. She's not sure she can survive having his smiles back, but she's not sure how she survived without them._ _


	85. Day 11: A sufficiently therapeutic prosthetic.

Last night when they went to bed, Cary hoped that he would wake up after a good night's sleep and the longing ache in his chest would be gone. But this morning, like every morning since the last time he separated from Kerry, the ache is stronger.

He knows the ache is stronger in Kerry, too. When the relay went off yesterday— She did her best to resist, but losing the feeling of having the Davids inside her only made her need Cary more.

Cary can't neglect Oliver's treatment, not again. And Oliver needs time to work on himself without relaying for David. He needs time to let his mind and soul and body heal back together. But as long as Kerry has the Davids inside her, she doesn't need Cary inside her.

Or at least they’re— A sufficiently therapeutic prosthetic. Like the artificial bodies keeping Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy's minds from drifting. 

Cary looks away from Oliver's test results and sighs. He knows he has to talk to Kerry, he knows that. He can't be a bad example for the Davids. He and Kerry need to be whole like Oliver needs to be whole like the Davids need to be whole. He knows all of that.

But here he is, trying to ignore all of it anyway.

It's a rare moment of calm in the lab, with Ptonomy and Amy helping Syd and the Davids up on the roof. Cary finished Oliver's tests first thing after waking him up. It's too soon to say if there's any definite improvements. One night of unified sleep can't undo twenty-two years of detachment and sleep deprivation, but Oliver's recollection of Melanie over breakfast is a promising sign.

Kerry is giving Oliver his physical therapy up in the loft. And Lenny, surprisingly, is sitting on a beanbag chair. It's not the chair that's surprising. Yesterday, Lenny stuck to David like glue, determined to guide him through a long and intense day of therapy for his whole system. Perhaps she feels bad for how the day ended. But they could hardly have predicted that fixing David's lamp would make him realize exactly how Farouk manipulates him and send him into another panic attack. What's important is that they all worked together to keep him from going away. David passing out afterward— If that was anyone's fault, it was Cary's.

They all have to watch out for each other and take care of each other. That's the only way they're all going to make it through this. Lenny has been quite forceful about not wanting help from anyone, but she has at least cooperated with the tests to track her mental state and its gradual deterioration. The tests were run overnight by Division 3's research team, and Cary pulls up the latest results.

Ptonomy and Amy are still doing well. Amy's doing much better than expected. They were worried that she would be the first to go, having been disembodied the longest, but she's had the most touch therapy of the three of them. The Davids are deeply tactile, and now Syd needs extensive touch therapy herself. Ptonomy has also made the effort to touch more, hugging Amy and Cary and Kerry, sharing touch with Syd. Cary's even found himself hugging Oliver quite often, just in case that will help him— And because Oliver is his friend and Cary's so glad to have him back.

But Lenny is not a hugger. Since getting her android body, she's shown significant discomfort with being touched by anyone, with verbal and physical refusals despite the fact that human touch is one of the best treatments for her condition. She only accepted one hug from David yesterday morning, and even that was clearly difficult for her. 

Cary might have missed the signs when Oliver first started to become detached. He might have failed Oliver again on his return, failed Melanie. But he's been a diagnostician for decades. Identifying symptoms is part of his job. And the way Lenny is sitting, staring at nothing— She might as well have left her android and gone back into the mainframe, for all that she's present.

Yesterday must have taken a lot out of her. Last night's tests showed significant declines in concentration and attention. She seemed fine over breakfast, but thinking back, she was quieter than usual, only engaging when it meant helping David and Syd. If she was in a living body, that could be excused by tiredness, solved by sleep and rest. But android bodies don't get tired. Disembodied minds can't sleep and can only rest in shallow ways. 

She's struggling, just like Oliver struggled all those years ago. Cary can't go back and tell himself what was wrong, can't save himself and Oliver and Melanie from all that heartache. But he can use what he knows now to help Lenny. The problem, as it always is, is how to get her to allow herself to be helped. 

Cary pulls up Lenny's file, compiled by Ptonomy with the mainframe's resources. It's clear that Lenny has endured an enormous amount of trauma, perhaps not developmental but certainly complex. To start, there's her true history of substance abuse, prostitution, and violence. All of that would be bad enough on its own. But she was, as David put it, made into a cocktail of Lenny and Benny, and then suffered a year of disembodiment with Farouk as her primary host. So she also has, to some degree, trauma from being Benny. She has trauma from the things Farouk did while he was using her as a mask. She has whatever influence remains from Farouk's mind and possibly even some from Oliver and David. That she's as functional as she is is a testament to her resilience and her need to survive.

Despite their differences, she reminds Cary very much of Syd. Emotional suppression for the sake of solitary survival. A thick, protective layer of anger around her heart, and then a cool, cynical exterior. Even their touch issues are similar, if for different reasons. Given what they know now about Clockworks and what Lenny endured there, what she endured even before that—

Cary isn't a therapist. He does his best to share what wisdom he's gained from his own struggles, but he doesn't have the training or experience that Melanie or Oliver had, that Ptonomy has. Sexual assault isn't something he's ever really dealt with, despite what happened to Kerry last year with Walter, despite what happened with David and Syd.

Sex isn't something Cary's thought of much at all, despite not having the embodiment issues that Kerry has. He's simply never felt that kind of desire for anyone of any gender, and with the complications of his life, he always felt that was for the best. Kerry is the love of his life. Few would be able to accept second place in his heart, and the alternative, of setting Kerry aside for someone else— That's simply unimaginable, if not impossible.

They're two minds in one body, two halves of a whole. And yet here they are pretending to be two separate people when that's never what they've been.

Cary turns his attention back to Lenny's file. Despite Lenny's refusal of treatment, Ptonomy suggested, along with the obvious diagnosis of complex trauma, a secondary diagnosis of trauma-induced haphephobia. Sexual trauma, physical and mental trauma. In the recording from her cell, Lenny said Farouk raped her over and over. Perhaps that was metaphorical and not literal, but in the end it doesn't truly matter. She was a captive mind, used and abused purely on Farouk's malignant whim. David's situation was the same. The things Farouk did to them have very little to do with conventional desire. The things the orderlies did to them, and whatever violence Lenny met on the streets— 

Cary knows his limits. He's no better suited to helping Lenny with all of this than he is to helping David with his possession trauma and everything that's tangled up with it. That's Ptonomy's territory and Lenny has to want to do the work. She's quite clearly not ready for that, but they still have to keep her from drifting away. So what Lenny needs, if she's unable to accept human touch, is— A sufficiently therapeutic prosthetic. 

And luckily enough, they already have one right here.

§

"Mind if I join you?"

Lenny looks up to see Cary. He has Syd's cat in his arms. Lenny can't remember its name. She doesn't like Syd and she sure as hell never liked cats. She doesn't have much of an opinion about Cary, except that he's usually attached at the hip to Kerry or Oliver.

"Yeah, whatever," Lenny shrugs. He can sit wherever he wants to sit. It's his lab.

Cary sits, perching at the edge of the loveseat next to her. He pets the cat. "Have you ever had any pets?" he asks.

Lenny starts to answer, but then she has to think about it. She remembers a lot of things. "Benny had a dog. Treated it like shit, surprise surprise."

"But not Lenny?" Cary asks. "Perhaps a cat?"

"Wrong kind of pussy," Lenny says, dismissive. She gives the cat a wary look. "Why'd you ask?"

"I was looking at the results from last night," Cary says, clearly reluctant to break bad news. "Your condition is deteriorating faster than we hoped. Last night and today, you've been having trouble with your concentration and attention. Have you noticed?"

Lenny wants to say of course she noticed. But— Shit, she's supposed to be helping David. "Where's David?"

"He's in the garden with Ptonomy and Syd," Cary says, growing even more concerned. "Don't you remember?"

"Right, yeah," Lenny says. Now she remembers. David, Syd, breakfast, couples therapy, got it. "Just needed a reminder. I gotta go up there, David's probably freaking out." She moves to haul herself out of the beanbag chair, but Cary reaches out and stops her. When his hand touches her arm, she flinches back. "Back the fuck off," she warns.

"My apologies," Cary says, pulling back. "But you're in no condition to help David right now. Your mind is drifting."

"Don't tell me what I can't do," Lenny says, irritated. Who the fuck does this guy think he is?

"Lenny," Cary says, concerned. "Please. How will David feel if he sees you like this? You need treatment."

"I'm doing your stupid treatment," Lenny replies. She jumped through their hoops all night, for all the good it did her.

"Only some of it," Cary says, and now he's getting all doctory. She knows the type well, they always think they know best. Bunch of pricks. "Sensory stimulation isn't enough. You need human touch."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Lenny says. "Aesthetically accurate my ass. Division 3's a bunch of prudes. The geeks that built this thing probably couldn't find a clit with both hands." She rubs where her cunt would be if this android body had a cunt, just to make Cary as uncomfortable as possible. David's not around so she doesn't have to play nice.

It mostly works. Cary turns beet-red but he doesn't leave. "Regardless," he says. "Your reluctance to allow yourself to be touched— I understand it's not comfortable for you. I thought perhaps Matilda—"

"I'm fine with touch," Lenny insists. "If you wanna give me some pussy, Kerry's cute."

Oh, now he's pissed. He was pissed off before, when she and Kerry came back from the cafeteria, having a good time. But he's not the yelling type, she can see that. He'll tell Ptonomy and get her in trouble, but what does she care? What is she even doing here?

Right. They won't let her leave. They might be paying her but she's still their prisoner, just like David.

"Lenny," Cary says, making an obvious effort to be patient with her. "We just want to help you."

"Maybe I don't want your fucking help," Lenny sneers. 

'What the hell’s going on down there?' Ptonomy's voice comes in over the mainframe. Ha, Cary didn't even get the chance to tell on her. Serves him right.

There's a thump as Kerry jumps down from the loft. Girl's got strong thighs, Lenny'd love to have them wrapped around her head. But Kerry only has eyes for Cary, and when she sees he's upset, she gets upset, too.

"Cary, what's wrong?" Kerry asks, coming over. Oliver's on the stairs, taking the easy way down.

"Lenny's showing symptoms," Cary says, all serious. "She's becoming detached."

"I can help," Kerry offers, brightly.

"I don't think that would be wise," Cary says, but Lenny's already getting to her feet. She's not going to turn down that offer.

Kerry's got a hot bod, slim and soft but all muscle underneath. Lenny holds her tight and Kerry holds her right back, she’s so sweet Lenny could eat her right up. She soaks up the hug like it's vapor. Shit, being disembodied is the worst. She needs a hit and she can't take anything, she needs to get laid but she can't fuck. This is the best she's felt in days. If she could just get off, she'd feel real good.

Well, she can't get off. But she bets Kerry can.

"Mmm, so nice," Lenny moans, rubbing against Kerry, testing the waters. Kerry's a little frigid but nothing she can't warm up. "I could teach you so much, baby."

Kerry tenses but doesn't pull away. "Teach me?" she asks, confused.

"About this," Lenny says, sliding her hands down to grab that tight, muscular ass, and then lower—

Kerry shoves Lenny back so hard she lands on her ass. Lenny looks up to see Kerry's shocked face. 

Shit. Shit, what was she doing?

"That's enough," Cary says, getting between them even though Kerry can obviously defend herself. He turns away from Lenny. "Kerry, are you alright?" 

"No," Kerry says, upset and confused. "You're not supposed to touch there," she yells at Lenny.

"I'm here," Amy calls, rushing in. "I came as fast as I could." Kerry rushes into Amy's arms and buries her face against her. "Shh, it's all right," Amy soothes.

Cary looks upset that Kerry didn't go to him, then turns on Lenny. "Don't ever do that again," he warns, furious.

"It was an accident," Lenny lies, raising her hands. It wasn't an accident, but— She's not even sure why she did it. She's horny, sure, but Kerry barely handles eating, she doesn't want sex. Lenny doesn't get off on girls who don't want it.

Lenny doesn't. But shit, Benny did.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Lenny says. She gets back to her feet and Kerry looks back at her, tensed warily like she doesn't want to leave Amy's arms but she's ready to kick Lenny's ass if she has to.

"Amy, can you take Kerry to our room?" Cary asks. "I'll take care of things here."

"What about Oliver?" Amy asks.

"I've got Oliver," Cary says. "Just take care of Kerry for me. Please?" 

Amy gives him a sympathetic look, then coaxes Kerry to leave the lab with her. Once they're gone, Cary sits back down and gestures to Lenny to do the same. Oliver joins them, though she doesn't know what good he can do when he's still swiss cheese and can't read her mind.

"Feeling more yourself?" Cary asks, unsympathetic but making an effort not to be.

"Uh, yeah," Lenny says, and now she's the confused one. She feels like— She's waking up from something. "What just happened?"

Cary's expression softens. "You've been drifting. Your mind was losing coherence because you refused touch therapy. Ptonomy can't come down, he's busy with Syd and David, so you need to explain what just happened. Now."

"All right, all right," Lenny says, exasperated. "I dunno, I just felt like— I didn't care. And I was— I'm not an asshole, okay? I mean yeah, I'm not a good person, but I'm not like— _that_. I don't dig that shit. I don't take other people's bodies."

"So why did you do it?" Cary asks.

Lenny hates this. She just wants to roll with what she has, like she told David to do. She doesn't want to deal with the mountain of shit she's been ignoring with all her might. But apparently her mind is falling apart already. She didn't enjoy having her mind dissolve the first time around. She likes it even less now that she knows what's happening to her.

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_. She knows what this means. She hates it with every fiber of her being, but she knows what this means.

"I got mixed up," she admits. "Too much Benny in my Lenny cocktail. Hey, who'd have thought a manipulative drug dealer would get off on taking advantage of people? Total shocker."

"Is that normally a problem for you?" Cary asks. "Benny's impulses?"

"I dunno, I've only been out of the shit beetle's head for like, a few weeks, and I spent most of that locked up," Lenny defends. "Maybe if you'd left me in my body I'd actually be the real me and not this jumbled mess."

"That wasn't your body," Cary reminds her.

"It was a hell of a lot better than this one," Lenny says, angrily. "I was alive, you know. I was fucking alive and I didn't have to deal with this shit anymore. You assholes murdered me. I'm doing my best to play nice."

"I understand that you're angry," Cary allows. "But this behavior is unacceptable."

"I'm sick," Lenny defends.

"If you're sick, then you need help," Cary replies. "That's how this works."

Lenny growls with frustration. Somehow this is karma for talking Syd into accepting help. She swore she wasn't going to get pulled into this therapy gangbang and now here she is.

But messing with Kerry like that— The more she comes back to herself, the worse she feels. Fucking Benny. Fucking shit beetle. Fuck fuck _fuck_.

"I didn't ask for this, you know," Lenny tells Cary. "I didn't ask to get my head fucked over. I didn't ask to get murdered by you or Farouk and I sure as hell didn't ask to get turned into a cocktail."

"Neither did David," Cary reminds her. "He doesn't bear the blame for any of the things he did under Farouk's influence. But he does bear the responsibility for doing the work now that he's free. The same goes for you."

"You call this free?" Lenny sneers. "I got a body that can't eat or come or get high, and I can't even take it for a joyride because it's 'property.'"

"And David has a crown that hurts him and limits his powers," Cary counters. "All of us are doing everything we can to save David so we can stop Farouk. You want that too or you wouldn't be helping us. None of us are free until this is over. That was made very clear to you once already. And frankly if it were up to me, you wouldn't get another chance to hurt David or Kerry."

"Thanks," Lenny drawls.

Cary gives her a considering look. Then he gets up, walks away looking for something, and then finds it. He comes back with Matilda.

"You're going to sit with Matilda and you're going to pet her," Cary tells her. "You need touch therapy, not sex. That's what helped you just now. If you want to stay in control of yourself, you will cuddle that cat and then you will do whatever you have to so you can hug people without molesting them. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Lenny mutters. Cary gently shoves Matilda into her arms and Lenny takes her. She never liked cats. The ones in the street were mangy and gross and hissed if she got too close. And Benny? Forget it, Benny would feed a kitten to a rabid dog just for kicks. And Farouk? 

She doesn't like to think about what Farouk would do. She feels even sicker wondering if she was thinking his thoughts and not just Benny's. Even with him out of her head— 

"David can't know," Lenny insists. They didn't tell him about her other fuckup, they sure as hell can't tell him about this.

"Actually, he has to," Cary says. "He needs to know so he can be part of your therapy, just like you're part of his."

"I'm supposed to be his cruise director," Lenny protests. Lenny wishes she could go back to yesterday. Yesterday was great. She was David's hero all day, and now she's the problem. 

"You still can be," Cary says. "Oliver is a patient and he's part of David's therapy. David needs you to help him get better. He won't think any less of you as long as you're trying."

"What, that's all I have to do?" Lenny mocks. "Try?"

"Yes," Cary says, firmly. "We know your history, Lenny. Given what you’ve suffered, this won't be easy for you or us. But the alternatives are all much, much worse."

"All right, all right," Lenny moans. "I'll pet the fucking cat." She pulls Matilda close and pets her, and tries not to feel incredibly annoyed that it helps her feel better. Fucking detachment syndrome. Matilda better not have fleas.

"Oh," Oliver says, suddenly. "If you'll excuse me, I'm needed on the roof."

"Oliver?" Cary asks, concerned.

"Ptonomy says if you have the situation under control, he'd like to wrap up David's foundation work before he brings David and Syd back down. That will require the relay. I could stay here if you like?"

"No, you should go," Cary says. "We'll be fine. Help David."

"Of course," Oliver says. As he walks away, he leans down and gives Matilda a scratch behind her ears. "Such a good kitty." He looks at Lenny with too-knowing eyes. "Be nice," he tells her.

"I'm always nice," Lenny lies. But she keeps petting the cat.


	86. Day 11: Yeah, that’s why it’s *our body*, dummy.

When their session is done, Ptonomy has David and Syd sit together on a bench and review their notebooks. Syd studies the material she copied from David and her new foundation and mantra, and David looks over the list he copied from Syd.

_Accept help.  
Leave my old refuge.  
Be open and vulnerable.  
Find my motivation.  
Build my new foundation.  
Create my mantra.  
Figure out who I'm supposed to be.  
Accept my wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them.  
Learn acceptance and compassion for myself and others._

It is a lot, like David first thought. But he's doing all of it, a little at a time. This is how he's getting better. Seeing it all laid out like this helps him realize how far he's come, and also what he still needs to do. But it's Syd's list, not his. He needs to write his own version.

_Accept help from the people who love me.  
Stop punishing myself.  
Learn to recognize what I'm feeling and manage my reactions._

Motivation? What he needs most is— Hope. He needs to believe that he can break this cycle he's been trapped in for so long, that the torture can end. He needs to believe that he's worth the work of ending it, that there's some escape beyond his own death.

 _Believe I am worth saving_ , he adds. He does, mostly, sometimes. He doesn't want to die anymore, he wants to live. But he still can't change 'David is love' into an 'I' statement. He accepts that he's loved, but— He doesn't know who David is, beyond what he's been made to be, beyond the countless ways Farouk sculpted him. And that makes him feel helpless and violated and— 

He takes a breath. _Build my new self_ , he writes. He has a foundation and a mantra, and they're always evolving but— He needed them in the first place because he lost all sense of who he was. His foundation is the basis for the David he wants to be. _I am David. I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself. David is love._

The next two lines he keeps as they are. 

_Accept my wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them.  
Learn acceptance and compassion for myself and others._

He doesn't have trouble offering acceptance and compassion, but— He's realizing how limited that's been in practice, how little he's truly engaged with other people in a healthy way. He was so trapped in his trauma, so limited by mental illness and medication and fear and Farouk— Maybe he would already have been passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed just from his DID, but— He doesn't want to be those things. He wants to be able to make choices, good choices. He wants to be able to trust his own judgement, his own mind. He wants to be happy and he doesn't want to be ashamed of just— Existing.

 _Learn to trust my own mind,_ he adds, and: _Be more than my shame._

A tall order for the shame onion himself, but— He wants it anyway. 

Dvd comes over and sits next to him and looks over his shoulder. "Good stuff." He looks at Syd. "Even if it did come from her."

"Must you?" David sighs.

"Hm?" Syd asks, looking up.

"I was talking to Dvd," David says, gesturing at the space beside him he knows is empty to her.

"Oh, okay," Syd says, and looks back down at her notebook.

"I'm just saying," Dvd says, still giving Syd a suspicious look. "Just because she wrote all that doesn't mean she means it. We can't let her crawl back into our head just like that. She _hurt_ you, she tried to kill us."

She's trying to get better, David thinks back. They have to give her the chance. She's doing it for them, Dvd and Divad are doing it for him, he’s doing it for them. 

Dvd grumps at him. "It's not the same. We're a system."

Well maybe he wants to have a system with Syd, too, David thinks back. Dvd accepted that before, right?

"That was different," Dvd insists. "You didn't know you had us."

What, and now because he does, he should just shut himself off from everyone else?

"No," Dvd says, but he's obviously not happy about it. "Maybe. I dunno, man. It used to just be us, we didn't need anyone else."

David knows that's a lie, one they must have all told themselves to survive. David needs people, he always has. He needs love and that's in his foundation. He needs Amy and Lenny and Kerry and yeah, he needs Syd. And before Dvd gets mad, he needs Dvd, too. 

Dvd sighs. "Fine. But we can't just go trusting everybody. People are dangerous. Amy put us in Clockworks, and you don't even remember all the things she did to us—" He cuts off and glares at Divad, still on the other bench. "I'll tell him if I want."

David looks over at Divad and gives him an annoyed look. He hates it when his brothers talk to each other and he can't hear it. It's bad enough they can hear his thoughts but he can't hear theirs.

"We're protecting you," Divad counters.

Well, don't, David thinks. He's better now, he's healing and— Treating him like he's incapable won't help him get strong, it won't help them reach healthy multiplicity so they can be stable so they can get the crown off. Unless Divad wants them to have to wear this thing forever? Because David really doesn't.

"Yeah, me too," Dvd admits. "It sucks and it hurts. It's the worst part about being back in our body, I hate it."

David and Dvd both look at Divad. Divad doesn't say anything, at least not anything David can hear. 

"What, don't you want it off?" David asks. 

"Of course I do," Divad says, but it's not very convincing. 

"Are you serious?" David asks. "You want this to stay on?" He points at his— Their head. "Why?"

Divad crosses his arms and looks away, refusing to answer.

"What the hell, man," Dvd says, angrily. "What, you can't punish David yourself anymore so you have to find another way to hurt him?"

"I'm not trying to hurt David," Divad protests. "I'm—"

"You're what?" Dvd challenges. "Explain to us how you dragging us down is gonna make things better."

"Look," Divad says, "I'm just— Having a hard time, okay? And why are we even doing this? Farouk's still out there, as soon as we're stable he'll come at us and what's gonna happen? The same thing that always happens, and we'll be back doing this all over again just like before, except it'll be even worse."

"We won’t let that happen," David insists, even though he just had to write down 'believe I'm worth saving' because he can’t hope enough to believe it himself. He's been letting everyone else believe it for him, which honestly helped more than he ever imagined, but— 

Developmental trauma. His whole system shares the same trauma. So Divad—

"Do you— Not think you're worth saving?" David asks.

Divad looks away, ashamed.

"Divad," David says, worried for him. "Look, I know— In the past, even— Yesterday—"

"Don't," Divad says, stopping him. "Stop forgiving everyone who hurts you because you think it's okay for us to hurt you."

"That's not—" David starts, but— Is that what he's doing? He's not sure. Is that what he's doing with Syd?

No. No, he didn't— He recognized he wasn't comfortable taking Syd back. He hasn't processed all the things that happened between them, all the ways she hurt him. Ptonomy said they'll have a session for that, and until then they're just— Being therapy buddies. That's all this is. They're helping each other get better because they love each other, because they matter to each other, but they're not— 

They're not a system. They love each other but they're not a system.

"Yeah, no shit," Dvd mutters.

But they could be. If they can work things out, forgive each other, build a new foundation together— Be the people they want to be and not— The people they were taught to be— 

He wants that. It scares him how much he wants that, the strength of the pull in his heart for Syd. He has to resist it because they're just not ready to give in, not without ending up right back how they were, and that was— Not good. They were a disaster.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Dvd grumbles, and David glares at him for that. "I didn't mean you and her," Dvd insists. "I mean you were, but— That's how we feel, how— I feel. About you." He gives David a vulnerable look.

"Oh," David says, realizing. He thinks of the way Syd reminded him of Dvd, and— David's looked at Syd that way, too, like he needs her to keep breathing. He used to feel that way all the time. And if he and Dvd used to feel that way for each other— And Farouk took those memories away—

"I'm sorry," David says, because what else can he say? The memories are gone. Those old feelings, that intense dependence, the intimacy that must have come with it— All of that is gone— But only for him. Dvd remembers everything. And if David imagines Syd forgetting what they had— Her turning on him in the desert didn't just break his heart, it broke all of him. Losing David in college must have been— It must have been the same.

Dvd tears up and he looks away. He wipes at his eyes. 

"Dvd," David says, reaching for him even though they can't touch. 

"It's okay," Dvd insists, a tremor in his voice. "I mean, it's not, it's really not, but—" He swallows. "You're still you and— I'm still me and— We're making a new system. We're brothers and we'll always be together no matter what, so— It's like Amy said. We'll make new memories, lots of them, and— They'll be a hell of a lot better than the old ones."

Dvd's trying so hard, David can see that. Dvd just wants to be with him again, even if they can't be how they were, even if they shouldn't be how they were. The same way Syd is trying. Because they love each other, they matter to each other. That's what's important, that's what makes it worth doing the work.

"Amy's right about that," David says, offering Dvd a smile. "I know because— This is already a good memory for me." He can feel how much Dvd loves him and it isn't scary, it isn't overwhelming. It doesn't feel like a problem. It just feels like love. David thinks about Dvd being the bulb in his lamp, when they finish rebuilding it, and— That's perfect because Dvd's love shines so brightly.

Dvd wipes his eyes again, but he breaks into a wobbly smile and— It means so much to him, to have David care about him, to have this new love growing between them. It's still a little weird to be— Learning to love himself, but— Compassion for the self, that's— He needs that. And it helps so much to know that— There was a part of himself that never stopped loving him, that never gave up on him no matter how bad things got. 

And that thought, unfortunately, sobers him.

"Divad," David says.

"You're right," Divad says, quietly. "I did give up on you, on our system. That's what I did."

"That's what you're doing now," Dvd grumbles.

"You're my brother, too," David says. "We can't leave each other so we have to work things out, just like I did with Amy and just like I'm doing with Dvd and Syd. I know I don't remember what happened between us—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Divad says.

"Ignoring this won't make it go away," David says, exasperated. "I don't know how to resolve— The pain you feel for what you did to me. I can't even forgive you because my forgiveness doesn't mean anything, because whatever happened— It didn't happen to the me I am now."

"Some of it did," Divad admits.

"Okay, yeah, some of it," David allows. "You can be awful sometimes, and when you are you make me feel— Like I always feel but worse. But you help me, too. You're helping me now, giving me the stability I need to get better. That means a lot to me and if you'd just stop— Drowning yourself in regret maybe we could actually—" He trails off, realizing that yes, he has been saying quite a lot of things out loud instead of thinking them, and yes, Syd and Ptonomy have been watching this whole time.

Fuck it. "We could love each other, too," he finishes, defiantly out loud.

Divad gets up and walks away, walks back. "I don't know how to stop hurting you," he admits. "And when I try, when I— Accept what I did to you was wrong— All I want to do is hurt myself. Either way I'm hurting our system."

"If the problems are big, we should get help," David tells him. "You agreed to that. So let's get help. Ptonomy's right here."

"The relay's off," Divad says. "And don't you dare offer to give up your time in our body."

"Actually, the relay's on," Ptonomy says. "I asked Oliver to join us after David and Syd finished so we could have your system session next. But you three got talking and I didn't want to interrupt."

The door to the roof opens and Oliver walks over. Divad glares at him. 

"I'm sorry for not warning you," Ptonomy says. "But the relay was coming back on anyway and it was an important conversation, I needed to hear your and Dvd's sides of it. And David's right. This is a big problem, and asking for help is the right way to handle it. Good job."

David perks up at the praise. It might have been a small decision, but it was still a good one and he made it. Chalk one up for learning to trust his own mind, or at least the ideas other people put into it. Wait, is that— Should he actually be— Never mind, he has to focus on Divad right now.

"How about the three of you come back to the table?" Ptonomy says. "Oliver, you can sit with Syd."

"I should stay?" Syd asks.

"If it's all right with the Davids," Ptonomy says. "David, Dvd, Divad— I'd like Syd to stay here with us, if that's all right. She'll only hear David's side of the conversation, like she did just now. Is that okay?"

David looks at Syd. 

"I'll leave if you want," Syd offers. "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"No," David sighs. "I mean, I should get used to people hearing me talk to myself. It's not like the whole world doesn't already know I'm crazy."

"You're not crazy," Syd says. "You're just different, David. You're three people instead of one. As long as those three people have— Healthy multiplicity— Then there's nothing wrong with that."

"You mean that?" David asks, surprised at how much her words affect him.

"David, I want to be with you," Syd says, honestly. "That means accepting you as you are. Having DID is part of what makes you you. I want to work things out with Dvd and Divad, just like I'm working them out with you. I hope your brothers will give me the chance to do that."

David looks to Divad and Dvd. Neither of them looks especially thrilled.

"How about Divad and Dvd each have a session with you during their embodiment periods?" Ptonomy suggests. "I'd also like them to talk to Amy."

"Whatever," Dvd sighs. 

"I'll take that as a yes," Ptonomy says. "Divad?"

"Fine," Divad says.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, turning back to Syd. "Looks like we're scheduled. And everyone's okay with Syd staying?"

David looks to his brothers. Divad nods and Dvd shrugs. "She can stay," David tells Ptonomy. Syd gives him a little smile, and it makes David's heart twang. It feels good making her happy, just like it feels good making Dvd happy. So he has— Two good memories. Dvd and Syd both— Accepting him as he is, so they can love each other and—

David tears himself away from Syd and goes to the table to join his brothers. Focus, he has to focus so Ptonomy can help his system.

“Everyone seated?” Ptonomy asks. Divad and Dvd both answer yes, which also tells Ptonomy where to look when he talks to them. “I’d like everyone to open their system notebooks to the list of ideas you wrote earlier. 

They all comply. 

“We’re going to help Divad with how he’s feeling,” Ptonomy says. “But this session is going to be a little different. The three of you are going to talk about all the ideas you shared with each other, and you’re going to use those ideas to make your system’s foundation and any mantras or other tools you feel will help you heal. Is everyone ready for that?”

They all answer yes. 

“Very good,” Ptonomy says. “Now, you still have trouble being truthful and open with each other. But your system foundation is too important for anything but complete honesty. You all have to agree on these ideas, even if you aren’t able to believe them yet. You have to commit to them in your hearts for yourselves and each other. So Dvd and Divad, you have two choices for how we proceed: either you lower your mental guards so David can hear your thoughts the way you can hear his, or Oliver will relay your thoughts for you.”

“Excuse me, what?” Divad says, outraged. “Absolutely not. Dvd, tell him, that’s not how we work.”

Dvd makes a reluctant face. “It’s not but— You know what? Kerry’s right. I always say what I think anyway. And— ‘David loves me again and we’re making a new system so it doesn’t matter how we worked.’

Dvd gives David a proud smile, and David smiles back. 

‘Ha, suck on that,’ Dvd thinks, triumphant, his smile turning into a smirk as he turns to Divad. 

Divad scowls at him. 

“Thank you, Dvd,” Ptonomy says. “Divad? It’s your choice. Will you share your thoughts with your brothers, or do they need to be shared for you?”

“Some choice,” Divad grumbles. 

“It’s not a judgement if you’re not ready,” Ptonomy says. “Your system has to come first, but we know this is difficult for you. It’s okay to let us help you.”

Divad visibly struggles. Then he shakes his head. “I can’t,” he admits. 

“Okay,” Ptonomy says. “Oliver?”

‘—hate this I hate this I hate this,’ Divad thinks. ‘Why did I think trusting these people was a good idea? We’re never going to—‘ His thoughts cut off as he sees David watching him. 

Yeah, hi, David thinks. 

Divad puts his elbows on the table and hides his face in his hands. 

“Boy do I know that feeling,” David sighs. “The agonizing humiliation goes away eventually.” Mostly, anyway. 

‘You two crack me up,’ Dvd thinks. 

‘I’m going to kill him in his sleep,’ Divad thinks. 

“You can’t, we all sleep together,” Dvd says. ‘God last night was amazing. It felt so good.’

David flushes. He didn’t feel anything, but Dvd makes it sound so— Intimate. It’s disturbing but— He can’t deny he’s curious. 

“Curious, huh?” Dvd asks, slyly. 

David is starting to realize that however his relationship with Dvd used to work, they had absolutely no boundaries. Which— Yeah, they grew up together sharing a body, and if they weren’t projecting or in their bedroom— If they shared most of the time—

“Oh my god,” David groans, and he doesn’t know why it took him so long to realize this, but— _They shared everything._ He’s so used to seeing them as separate people but they are absolutely not separate people.

Oh god. Syd. They were with him when he and Syd— When he and _Philly_ , when— Oh god, every time he _masturbated_.

“Or showered or took a shit,” Dvd says. “Yeah, that’s why it’s _our body_ , dummy. We’re not Kerry, we’ve been living it up with that thing since day one. Let me tell you, eating is not what I miss most about being in charge.” He makes a rude gesture with his hand. 

David feels faint. How did he not realize this before? Oh god, adolescence, hormones— He has no idea how much of what he remembers is even remotely real, but— There were definitely some embarrassing incidents with Amy— 

Oh god, Amy is hearing all of this. It just keeps getting worse. And Farouk— Farouk was there for his entire life. He was there for Benny. _He was there for everything_.

Okay, now he feels sick and faint. This is— Not good.

“Take it easy,” Ptonomy says. He’s not across the table anymore, he’s holding David’s arm and rubbing his back. “Syd, can you get us some water?”

Syd nods and hurries off. 

“David, are you going to pass out?” Ptonomy asks. 

David doesn’t think so, but— He doesn’t think staying upright is a thing he can do. 

“Let’s get you to a bench.” Ptonomy helps him up, taking his weight easily as David staggers to a bench and collapses onto it. Ptonomy takes off his jacket, folds it, and then tucks it under David’s head as he helps him lie down. 

“That was a big realization,” Ptonomy says. “Take it easy.”

‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ Divad thinks. 

“Actually this is an important step forward,” Ptonomy replies. “David needs to accept that he’s in a shared body and always has been.”

Dvd leans over the back of the bench. “You’re looking kinda green,” he says, concerned. “Maybe we should get a bucket.”

No. David is not going to let his possession trauma make him throw up again. He breathes slowly and deeply and the nausea eases. 

He hears the stair door open and close, and there’s Syd with a water bottle. 

“What happened?” Syd asks, handing the bottle to Ptonomy. “David was fine and then he just—“

“He had a realization,” Ptonomy tells her. “About what it means to have shared his body for his entire life.”

“Oh,” Syd says. “Oh!” She grimaces. 

“It was a shock,” Ptonomy says. “He’ll be fine, he just needs to let it settle.”

Syd knew. Of course she knew, and she— She still wants to be with him? But that’s— His brothers— That would be— 

That’s— Actually kind of amazing. She knew and she accepted it and— She loved him when he was a hopeless schizophrenic and when he was an all-powerful mutant and now— She loves him even though he’s three people in one body. 

‘Oh you have got to be kidding,’ Dvd grumbles. ‘Now we’re really stuck with that blonde bitch.’

“Don’t call her that,” David mutters. He grabs the bench and pulls himself up with Ptonomy’s help. He leans heavily on his knees and accepts the opened water bottle. He takes small sips, hoping they’ll settle his stomach. 

“Ugh, maybe this was a bad idea,” Dvd says to Divad. 

“I told you,” Divad says. 

“Dvd, you can choose to hide your thoughts again, but if you do—“

Dvd huffs. “I’m an open book. Happy?”

Ptonomy quirks a smile. “Actually, yes. Thank you for being as open with David as he is with you. You made that choice. I know that means a lot to David.” He looks to David. “Right?”

David gets the message. “It does,” he answers honestly. “It needs to be okay for us to upset each other. Just like with Amy. But if you keep insulting Syd, you’re the one who’s gonna be upset,” he warns. Dvd insulting Syd does not give David happy light bulb thoughts. “And the same goes for— Divad and Amy. The four of you—” David has to stop talking because his stomach doesn’t like it. He breathes and takes another small sip. Just make up already, he thinks at them. 

“You know, I don’t remember David ever being this bossy,” Dvd says to Divad. 

“We’re all different,” Divad admits. ‘Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe— If we change enough—‘

“Exactly,” Ptonomy says. “We’re the ones who are making this time different, Divad. So if you don’t want this to end the same way it always has, keep challenging yourself, keep changing. Become the person you want to be, not the person you were forced to be.”

‘Just like David,’ Divad thinks. 

“Hey, I’m changing, too,” Dvd reminds him. “I accepted David before you, I’m sharing my thoughts without that stupid relay. I’m gonna make up with Amy and Syd before you.”

“This isn’t a race,” Divad says. 

“Says the loser,” Dvd smirks. “Hey, since David's busy being sick, I want my turn. We can do the foundation stuff later. C’mon!”

Ptonomy considers the request. “Your system foundation is extremely important. But if you’re motivated to truly make up with Amy and Syd—“

“Hell yeah I’m motivated,” Dvd declares. 

Ptonomy thinks some more. “If Syd is willing, you two can have your session now. But David needs to stay embodied after that shock. So the three of you would have to agree to let Oliver relay you to Syd. Temporarily.”

“Fine,” Dvd says. “David?”

David feels too sick to think, there won’t be anything coming out of his head for Syd to hear. “S’fine,” he says. He needs to lie back down. 

‘This just keeps getting worse,’ Divad thinks. “Fine, whatever,” he grumbles. ‘It’s not like I have a choice. I hate this I hate this I hate this.’

Ptonomy turns to Syd. “Looks like your next appointment just got moved up.”


	87. Day 11: His thought could have been her own.

Syd doesn't want the relay so she can hear David's thoughts. It would be nice to know exactly what he's thinking, it would probably be both infuriating and satisfying, but mostly— She just wants to be able to talk to Dvd and Divad. She wants to be able to hear what they're saying to David. She wants— No, _needs_ to have actual conversations with them herself.

Face to face would be best. Syd would have been fine with waiting until Dvd had his turn in David's body for this. But David's laid out on a bench trying to keep his breakfast down, and they don't have any time to waste, so they're doing this now, whether she's ready for it or not.

She thinks she's ready. She'd better be.

"This will be just like before," Ptonomy tells her. "You already have the telepathic antenna from your previous session with Divad and Dvd. Oliver will relay to you, and you'll be able to hear Dvd and Divad's voices as well as all the Davids' thoughts. Okay?"

"Okay," Syd says. The last time they did this, it was to figure out what Future Syd did to David and why. She learned a few of David's secrets along the way, like the origin and reason for the locket she's wearing, but mostly— She learned how angry Dvd was with her, how angry David was with her even though he couldn't express that anger himself. Dvd had to express it for him. 

But Dvd is ready to talk to her, to start patching things up. That's good, that's very good. It means even if David still needs to process their relationship, even if he's not ready for them to be together yet— Dvd is extremely protective of David, so he wouldn't agree to this if David didn't want it, didn't need it, didn't need _her_.

David needs her. That, more than anything else, will get her through this. 

"Oliver, go ahead," Ptonomy says.

'C'mon c'mon c'mon,' say Dvd's impatient thoughts, springing to life in her head. At her startled reaction, she hears him say "Finally!" aloud. His voice is coming from the same spot where David sat during her session with him before. She tries to imagine him there now, but with Dvd's mannerisms, his expressions. She wants to meet his eyes, but it's difficult to meet the eyes of someone she can't see.

"Okay, listen up," Dvd tells her. "I'm not gonna mess around with this. We both know that David's gonna do his processing thing, blah blah blah, and then he's gonna forgive you."

'What?' David thinks, looking over at them.

"Sorry, but c'mon, that is not a secret," Dvd tells him. His voice turns back to her. "Forgiveness is David's thing. My thing is keeping David safe. It's protecting him from anything or anyone that tries to hurt him. I don't care if that's Divad or the shit beetle or you. So if you two wanna be together, if that makes David happy? Fine. But I'm always watching and if you fuck up one more time, _I will end you_."

Wow. Okay, maybe David's still got some anger to work out. 

From somewhere near Oliver, Syd hears a despairing sigh. 'This is never going to work,' Divad thinks.

'Don't threaten Syd,' David thinks, annoyed. He must be too nauseous to talk. 

"How am I supposed to keep her in line if I can't threaten her?" Dvd complains.

'You're supposed to be making up, not— Making things worse,' David thinks. 'Try actually, you know, talking to her?'

Dvd humphs. "Fine.” His voice turns back to Syd. “Let's talk."

Where to start? “Okay,” Syd says, thinking. “How about we talk about our relationship?”

Dvd snorts. “We don’t have a relationship. You’re with David, I’m with David, that’s it.”

“You’ve been with David his whole life,” Syd counters. “You've been with us since the moment we met in Clockworks. You were with us in the white room, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Dvd admits. “But none of that counts.”

“It counts for me,” Syd says. “I’ve shared things with you. My body, my emotions, my private words. So we need to talk about that.”

She glances over to see David staring at them.

"That has nothing to do with me," Dvd insists.

“When we talked about Future Syd,” Syd continues. “You said ‘she loved us, she had sex with us.’ Those were your words. Your system shares everything."

"Yeah," Dvd admits, "But—" 'That's not how we— David wasn't supposed to love people who weren't us.'

“But he does,” Syd counters. “David loves a lot of people, not just me." She pauses, considering Dvd's reaction. "How does your system work, emotionally?"

'It doesn't,' Divad thinks, bitterly.

"Hey, it'd work a lot better if we could share," Dvd tells him. He turns back to Syd. "When we're all in our body, we feel it together. Being projected all the time—" 'I hate it.'

'You do?' David asks, sounding— Hurt and worried.

"Yeah," Dvd admits. 'I miss—' 

He doesn't finish his thoughts, but David reacts to his expression, whatever it is. "I'm sorry," he says, eyes filling with regret. 'I'm hurting him, but I can't—'

"You'll get there," Ptonomy intervenes. "Healing takes time. Trying to push yourself too hard will only set you back. Dvd, sharing sleep with David must have helped a lot, right?"

"Yeah," Dvd agrees. 'We were together again,' he thinks, and he sounds like— 

His thought could have been her own. It's full of the same relief and yearning she felt after David's return, after spending hours with him in timeless space of the white room and then returning to their bodies, to reality. They were together again, and she never wanted to leave but the world dragged them back, undeniable.

"It must have been very hard for you, being apart from David for so long," Syd says. "Being apart from him now."

"We're together again," Dvd insists.

"But not the way you could be," Syd says. "Your relationship with him was intense. That was taken away from you. And now— You have to make a new relationship with him, a better one. But you don't know what that is, and— It's scary."

She desperately wishes she could see his face. 

'She knows,' Dvd thinks. 'How does she—' "So what if it is?" he says, defensive.

"I'm just saying," Syd says. "I understand. How you feel for David— It's difficult to want someone, to love them, but— For that love to cause them pain. For your need to be with them to hurt them."

"You don't understand me," Dvd says, angrily.

"Would it be a bad thing if I did?" Syd asks. When he doesn't respond, she continues. "I know we can't be together yet, but I want to be. I want to be with David and that means being with all of him, with you and Divad. At the very least I want us to be friends. I think we need to be, because if we can't get along, all that's going to do is hurt David and make your system unstable."

'If she doesn't want to hurt David then she should leave,' Dvd grumbles. 

'Syd leaving would hurt me,' David thinks back. 'You know how I feel, probably better than I do. Please, Dvd.'

“You hurt us,” Dvd tells Syd, furious. “You used us and manipulated us and tried to kill us! And you want us to act like none of that happened!”

“It did happen,” Syd says, accepting fault but refusing to back down. “Both me and my future self did those things. I did them to all of you. I’m prepared to do whatever I have to so you and David and Divad can each forgive me and accept me back into your lives. All I’m asking for is the chance to do that.”

“Liar,” Dvd sneers. “You never cared about us, you never loved us. You’re afraid of what we are and when you can’t handle us you’ll lock us up and walk away, just like everyone else!” His voice moves like he’s standing up. “You already did! This crown is your fault, I hate you!”

‘I gotta get out of here, I gotta— Shit, why didn’t I let David make a new bedroom?’ Dvd thinks, desperate. 

“Dvd,” Ptonomy calls. “Divad, help him.”

“Calm down,” Divad says, and it sounds like— They’re struggling?

“Fuck you, traitor,” Dvd sneers. “I’m taking David and getting out of here!”

There’s a scuffle and then— David abruptly sits up, eyes wide. 

“Oh no,” Syd breathes. She looks to Ptonomy and they both stand up, move towards David. 

“David, talk to us,” Ptonomy says. 

“No,” David gasps, but not in response to them. He jerks to his feet, struggling to control his body. “No, I don’t want this!” 

“Get out of our body right now, you idiot!” Divad demands. 

“Fuck you,” David— No, Dvd says. He lurches away, lurches back. “Stop it! No, I’m getting us out of here!”

David looks to Syd with terrified eyes. ‘Help me!’ he thinks. 

“That’s enough,” Ptonomy says, grabbing him. “Oliver!”

Oliver stands up and the two of them wrestle Dvd and David to the ground. Syd hears snatches of thoughts, fragmented with anger and fear. Dvd and David are both panicking, struggling for control. 

"David, step out," Ptonomy calls.

‘No, he's mine!’ Dvd cries. ‘Get out!’ David thinks, frantic. ‘Let me go!’

“That's enough!" Divad says, and then— David's body goes limp.

"What just happened?" Ptonomy asks, urgent.

"I made our body sleep," Divad says. 

"And that made both of them sleep?" Ptonomy asks.

"It's just like the sleep inducer," Divad says, then sighs. "Blow things up and run away. That's Dvd's answer for everything."

"At least he can't literally blow things up," Ptonomy says. Ptonomy and Oliver haul David back up onto the bench. "We have to separate them," Ptonomy says.

"I can pull Dvd out," Divad says. "It's a lot easier when he's asleep."

Ptonomy considers this. "Will he wake up faster that way?"

"Oh, I'll wake him up," Divad promises.

"Do it," Ptonomy says.

There's silence, and then—

Dvd startles awake, confused. "What the hell— You asshole!" They start struggling again.

"Dvd!" Ptonomy yells. "Calm down and get a hold of yourself. Do you have any idea what you just did to David?"

The struggling stops. "I—" Dvd starts. "I was trying to protect him!"

"You were scared and you panicked," Ptonomy says, firmly. "You took control of David without his permission, you tried to force him to leave, you wouldn't let him go. What do you think that felt like to him?"

"I'm not the shit beetle!" Dvd says, angrily. "David should know that! He should let us be together, it's not fair!"

"You can't take what David isn't willing to give, not without hurting him."

"It's our body!" Dvd says.

"It is," Ptonomy says. "But David can't share it with you, not while he's awake, not until he's worked through his trauma. You just set him back and made it harder for him to trust you."

'Shit,' Dvd thinks. It sounds like he calming. "I didn't—"

"I know," Ptonomy says. "You didn't mean to hurt him, but you got scared and angry and your emotions took control of you. That happens to both you and Divad, and every time it does, you hurt your system. You have to learn to manage your emotions and your reactions, just like David."

"Hey, me being angry is what keeps us safe," Dvd insists.

"We talked about that before," Ptonomy reminds him. "That's a lie you tell yourself. Your anger hurts your system. It isolates you and it makes you lash out at everyone around you. Reckless anger won't save you or David from what's happening to you."

'This is bullshit,' Dvd thinks.

"It's the truth," Ptonomy says. "We're going to work on that later, but right now I want to make something extremely clear. You cannot ever take control of David like that again. You can't take David away from what he needs to get better. This is the third time you've tried that and it has to be the last."

The third? There was the incident with Kerry, obviously, but the other?

The courtroom. At the end when David changed— When Syd has a chance she wants to watch the surveillance footage of that day. She knows now that was Dvd taking control, trying to save David from her, from Division 3, from being forced into therapy.

"David didn't need any of you people before," Dvd says, surly. "He had us, he had _me_ and that was enough."

"That's a lie, too," Ptonomy says. "David was sick with trauma and shame. You and Divad couldn't help him with those things any more than Amy could. You and Divad were the first to lock David away, to give up on him, and I think that guilt has been eating you alive ever since."

"No!" Dvd denies, but it's weak. "We didn't—"

"You did," Ptonomy says. "You were trapped with a monster, you were desperate to survive. Maybe David will never remember those years, but they still happened. You're all still living with the consequences. Denial won't help you any more than it helps David, those feelings will always find a way out."

'I hate this,' Dvd thinks, plaintive and angry.

"I know it's hard," Ptonomy says, gentler. "But if you want to be with David, you have to change, too. You have to work through your trauma and change your behavior. You have to accept the people he loves. You have to accept who he is now, not who you want him to be. Amy and Syd both understand that. If you want David to love you, the way to that is change and acceptance." He turns to where Divad's voice last came from. "Can you wake David up now? Not too fast."

"It'll just feel like he nodded off," Divad says.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "Dvd, when David's awake, you're going to apologize to him and you're going to mean it. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Dvd grumbles, then sighs.

David wakes up, slowly at first and then— He bolts up, eyes wide, flailing.

"It's okay," Ptonomy tells him, reaching out. "You're in control, it's over. Look, Dvd and Divad are right here. You're alone in your body."

David makes a kind of desperate animal noise, something between terror and relief. He grabs Ptonomy's hand and grips it tightly. He's breathing so fast Syd's worried he might make himself pass out.

"You're okay," she tells him, hoping she can help soothe him. "Shhh, it's okay. You're safe, I promise you're safe."

David meets her eyes and she holds his gaze, putting as much calm and love into her eyes as she can. David doesn't look away. The terror leaks out of him and his breathing slows. As his tension drops, he slumps, exhausted. 

"That was— Awful," he gasps. 

"I'm sorry," Dvd says. "I fucked up, okay?" 'Please don't hate me.'

David makes an exasperated sound. "I don't hate you," he says. "But that was really— Not helpful." He wraps his arms around himself. He looks shaken, haunted. 

"I think it's time we went downstairs," Ptonomy says. "We'll have to take a break until you're feeling better. But making your foundation is essential so we have to get it done as soon as we can. Your whole system needs to agree on your goals so you can get better together."

"Okay," David agrees. "I just— Need a minute."

"Take your time," Ptonomy says. "Is it okay if Syd sits with you?"

David nods. 

Syd sits, leaving a comfortable amount of space between them. "Hey," she says, gently. "You okay?"

"Not really," David admits. "Seems like— My whole system is a disaster."

"I think we're all disasters," Syd says, wryly. "But maybe— That's a good thing? Helping each other get better— That will help us figure out who we want to be."

David looks at her meaningfully. 'I love her so much. God, I just— I just want—'

Okay, it does feel amazing to hear David thinking how much he loves her. But the relay— "David, Oliver's still sending me the relay," Syd warns.

"Oh," David says, realizing. 'Maybe I should— She needs to keep talking to Dvd, to Divad— What does it matter? Everyone else can hear, she should hear, but—' He looks away from her. 'I should do it for them, it doesn't matter if— I can't even share— What's wrong with me? Why can't I just— I'm hurting them, I'm hurting everyone—'

With a sinking feeling, Syd realizes— This is what David does to himself. If he's told to do something he doesn't want to do, if he feels obligated or pressured— He punishes himself until he gives in.

That's what he did with her their whole relationship. That's why he couldn't say no to her. That's part of why Dvd hates her, even though— David's doing the exact same thing with Dvd.

She used to love that so much, his need to please her, but now that she knows what it really is— She doesn't want it anymore. It's not love, it's just— Internalized abuse.

"David," Syd says, thinking of what she copied from David's notebook. "You have the right to say no. I'll be fine without the relay, Dvd will be fine without sharing during the day. We'll all be okay. What's important right now is for you to take care of yourself."

David doesn't look convinced. "I know, but—"

"You wrote that love means treating each other with trust, honesty, and respect. You have to give yourself that same love so you can heal. You need to be honest with yourself, you need to respect and trust your own needs. If you don't, you'll keep hurting yourself. That's what's happening now."

David pulls his arms tighter around himself. 'It's my fault, if I could share with Dvd—'

Syd realizes that David was right: he hurts himself and he doesn’t even know when he’s doing it. He blames himself, punishes himself—

"Dvd needs to get better, too," Syd says. "He loves you but he has a lot of work to do, just like I do. Hurting yourself won't help us, it won't heal your system. I don't need to hear your thoughts to love you. Dvd doesn't need to share with you to love you. It's okay for you to say no."

David looks at her again, and his eyes are full of meaning but no thoughts come across the relay. She always wondered what he was thinking in moments like this, and now she knows— He isn't. He's just feeling without words. What he's giving her is already everything he has.

"David," Syd says. "I want you to share your thoughts with me because you feel safe enough to share them. Because sharing them with me will make you happy. I don't want it to be a sacrifice. So please, if you're not ready— Ask Oliver to stop relaying to me."

'Can't it feel safe and be a sacrifice?' David thinks.

Syd gives a sad smile. "I don't think it can. But if you're afraid— I'll be right here. I promise, I'm not going anywhere."

David takes a shaky breath, lets it out. "Okay. Um, Oliver? Stop relaying to Syd. Please."

"Done," Oliver says. 

David turns his head, listening to something. His brothers must be talking, but Syd can't hear them. 

"No," Ptonomy says. "You two have been holding back a lot from David and that needs to end. Your system recovery needs equality and honesty. Even if that makes you uncomfortable, this is the best way to help you achieve those things. The relay is staying on for David until you're willing to share with him the way he shares with you."

Another pause and then:

"Oliver?" David asks.

"Let's have a look," Oliver says. He walks over and sits on David's other side. He places his hands on either side of David's head and they both close their eyes.

"What's happening?" Syd asks Ptonomy.

"Divad and Dvd asked Oliver to find a way to heal David's mental shields," Ptonomy explains. "They helped him with the sleep inducer. This is what they want in return. Oliver's taking a look to see what the problem is."

"Hmm," Oliver hums, thoughtful. He concentrates, frowns, then open his eyes, lowers his hands. "You said the monster broke him open?" he asks. A pause, and then: "Well, we all know what happens when we assume. David has no shielding ability. When your mind split and your powers were distributed— It seems he simply gave all his shielding to you."

"And there's no way to share that ability back?" Ptonomy asks.

"None that I know of," Oliver says. "Though it's possible I used to know. Perhaps I'll remember, perhaps not. We are leaves of the tree, we are drops of water running to the ocean through the fish’s mouth."

David turns and looks at where his brothers must be. "I guess— I was doing a terrible job of saving you," he says, with a sad smile. 

A long pause, and then:

"So you'll both share?" Ptonomy asks. "Thank you. I know it's not easy, but it's important. David, will you do the honors?"

"Okay," David says. "Um, Oliver, could you— Stop relaying to me?"

"Done," Oliver says. 

David listens, and then smiles, a little less sad this time. "Thank you," he says to his brothers. "This really— It means a lot."

David sacrificed his defenses to help his brothers. And now— They're making the same sacrifice to help him, to help their whole system become what it needs to be. To make things equal between them.

Healthy multiplicity, Syd thinks. It's not easy, figuring out what that means for all of them, but they're getting there.


	88. Day 11: Thanks. For the Twizzlers.

Amy's spent most of her life as a caregiver. Between Mom and David, there was always someone who needed help, some physical or emotional crisis that needed resolving or soothing. After Mom died, Amy grieved deeply but felt relieved that one burden had finally been lifted from her shoulders. But Mom's death only sent David into a years-long downward spiral. Sometimes it felt like David was doing it on purpose because he knew that Amy finally had more of herself to spare for him, that her attention wasn't divided anymore.

In hindsight, knowing what she knows now— It was still divided. She was taking care of three brothers, not one, and they were all being tortured, they were all traumatized. It's no wonder they were so much to handle. They're a lot to handle now, even though she's only one part of the Davids' new support system. But that support system is also traumatized, also prone to crises that need resolving or soothing.

Amy rushes down the stairs as she watches Lenny and Kerry hug over the mainframe feed. She pushes open the door to the hallway as Lenny gropes Kerry, and reaches the door to the lab as Kerry shoves Lenny away.

Ptonomy was worried that Lenny wasn't stable enough to be in the lab. He had deep concerns about her mental state, about what was even left of her after a year of horrific torture and transformation. Even though Farouk couldn’t directly control her anymore, couldn’t reach her in the mainframe, the question remained of who Lenny even was at all, after everything she endured. 

But David needed her. David still needs her. And for her own sake, Lenny needs to be in a body, needs to be with people, just like Amy and Ptonomy. But their android bodies are only a temporary solution. All three of them are running out of time. They just didn't expect Lenny to be the first to lose herself.

In hindsight, maybe they should have. 

"I'm here," Amy calls, rushing into the lab, to the latest unfolding disaster. "I came as fast as I could." When Kerry sees her, she rushes up to Amy and clings to her, distressed. "Shh, it's all right," Amy soothes.

Amy meets Cary's eyes. Cary stares back, obviously distressed that Kerry didn't run into his arms instead. But he asked for Amy's help with Kerry, he asked Amy to become a part of Kerry's life, to help Kerry in ways Cary can't. 

Cary visibly accept's Kerry's choice, then rounds on Lenny. "Don't ever do that again," he warns, furious.

"It was an accident," Lenny says, raising her hands. But she seems to realize how obvious the lie is. "Shit, I'm sorry." 

When Lenny stands up, Kerry tenses, ready to attack again. Kerry's a fierce fighter, Amy saw that through Lenny's eyes in the desert. But fighting won't help Kerry or Lenny right now.

"Amy, can you take Kerry to our room?" Cary asks. "I'll take care of things here."

"What about Oliver?" Amy asks. Oliver's standing and watching in that curious but passive way he has. He's been calm and helpful, but he went through a year of horrific torture himself. She just doesn't know if he'll heal enough to engage with his trauma before her own detachment syndrome makes her just as mentally adrift as he is.

"I've got Oliver," Cary says. "Just take care of Kerry for me. Please?" 

Amy gives Cary a sympathetic look, then coaxes Kerry to leave the lab with her. Kerry glares back as they leave, clingy and furious. When they get to Kerry and Cary's room, she pulls away from Amy and wipes angrily at her eyes.

She's upset, still reeling. Amy knows from both long and recent experience that Kerry needs space to calm herself and settle, so she sits down on the bed and waits. The room is smaller than she expected, only really meant for a single person. But then until very recently, that was how Cary and Kerry spent most of their time, as a single person.

"She's not supposed to do that," Kerry mutters, pacing the long space by the bed. "Who does that! I thought she was nice because she helped David but she's _not_."

"She shouldn't have done that," Amy agrees.

"That's right," Kerry says, defiant. "You're not supposed to do that, you're not supposed to—" She cuts herself off. "I thought she was nice," she says, betrayed.

Amy pats the bed. "Sit with me?"

Kerry gets a stubborn look, like she just want to be angry and find something to punch, and that something might possibly be Lenny. But she throws herself onto the bed with a huff. She crosses her arms in protective defiance and scowls.

"If she's gonna do things like that she should go back to her cell," Kerry tells her.

"What Lenny did was wrong," Amy agrees. "But she needs help, not punishment."

"No she doesn't," Kerry insists. "She needs to be squished up in a gross ball." 

Walter. Amy was there for that horrific display. Walter tortured her, he hurt David, he hurt Kerry and a lot of people. He enjoyed causing pain and she was glad to see him dead. But Lenny isn't Walter.

Through the mainframe, Amy hears Lenny telling Cary that there was too much Benny in her Lenny cocktail. 

"Lenny isn't like Walter," Amy tells Kerry. "Do you know what happened to Lenny?" 

"Farouk killed her," Kerry says. "And then— I dunno. She was him, and then she was you, and now she's just her."

"All that's true," Amy says. "But something else happened to her, something— It's a little like what happened to David."

Kerry perks up. Kerry has so much empathy for David, she relates to him so much even though she barely understands what he's dealing with, what he's been through. Amy hopes that empathy can be spread around a bit.

"At first she was just Lenny, David's friend who had a very difficult life," Amy begins. "But David had another friend, a man named Benny. Farouk knew everything about Benny because he read Benny's mind for years. When Farouk captured Lenny, he changed her. He gave her Benny's memories and thoughts, and changed David's memories to match hers."

"Why?" Kerry asks, confused.

"Because Farouk needed David to trust him," Amy says. "And even though David trusted Lenny a lot, Farouk needed more. Imagine if someone combined David and Cary together into one person. You’d feel everything you felt for each of them, but for one person."

"Weird," Kerry says, but she's taking it in. "Cary and David are pretty different, though."

"They are," Amy agrees. "And so were Lenny and Benny. The Lenny we know is really two people in one."

"So there's someone else inside her, too?" Kerry asks, eyes wide. 

Amy smiles. "Sort of. But she's not a system. You know how David lost his old memories, how Farouk gave him new ones? Some of those new memories are from his brothers. Some of David is Dvd and Divad."

"The Davidest David," Kerry says, proudly. 

"Exactly," Amy says. "But the memories and thoughts Lenny was given, they were from someone who was very different from her. I knew Benny. David was friends with him for years, but Benny wasn't a good friend. He stole from David, he was cruel to him—"

"Then why'd David trust him?" Kerry asks.

"You know how David hurts himself?" Amy asks, even though she grieves at the memories that brings her. "He wanted to hurt himself back then, too. Benny helped him do that."

That's clearly a step too far for Kerry to understand. 

"Kerry," Amy says, trying to draw her back, "Lenny isn't just Lenny. She's also Benny, and— Benny is the one who's like Walter."

"Oh," Kerry says, and now it's clicking. "So— We have to get Benny out?"

"We can't," Amy says. "Lenny is also Benny now, and she has to learn to deal with that. That's going to be very hard for her. And— She also needs our help because her detachment syndrome is getting worse, and that makes it harder for her to control the Benny parts of her."

"If she's dangerous, we have to keep her away from David," Kerry insists.

"David needs her," Amy says. "Lenny doesn't want to hurt David. She didn't want to hurt you. When you're ready to go back to the lab, I'm sure she'll want to apologize."

“I don’t care about her stupid apology,” Kerry says, annoyed. “I want to punch her in the face.”

"Punching isn't the answer for everything," Amy says.

"It helped David," Kerry insists.

Amy wasn't there for that incident, she was still trapped inside of Lenny. But she watched the surveillance footage, she knows what happened to David even though they couldn't see him.

"Kerry," Amy says. "You punching Dvd— That upset David a lot. It made David go away."

Kerry stares at her, stricken. In the surveillance footage, Kerry was deeply upset at having hurt David. She knew David went away after that, he didn't come back until the next morning. But Amy realizes Kerry never fully connected her violence with David's vanishing, maybe because David stepped out before he went away. And of course, back then everyone still had so much to learn about what was actually happening to David.

"We all make mistakes," Amy says, gently. "What's important is that we learn from our mistakes, that we try to be better."

"I am trying," Kerry says, stubbornly. "I'm doing a lot, I'm eating and doing body stuff and being with people and talking and— I have to because I'm outside now, I have to, but—"

"But what?" Amy prompts, seeing Kerry struggle.

Kerry huffs and looks away from her. "I hate it sometimes," she admits. "It hurts and it's lonely and—" She sniffs and her eyes well up. "Cary doesn't want to be inside. What if he's never inside again?"

"Of course he will be," Amy assures her. "He loves you very much."

"He doesn't need me," Kerry says, her chin wobbling. "I needed him all the time but— He doesn't need help with body stuff or being outside or anything."

Amy is reminded strongly of yesterday, of Divad saying he didn't know how to be part of his system anymore. She thinks of Dvd being distraught because David wouldn't turn to him for comfort. "Kerry, what does it mean to be inside, for you?"

"I dunno," Kerry shrugs.

"You spent a lot of time inside of Cary," Amy says. "Was it just that you were afraid of stepping out?"

"No," Kerry says. "I liked being inside. It was— I dunno."

"You felt safe?" Amy suggests. "Protected?"

Kerry's tension eases a little. "Yeah. Cary was always— He took care of everything. He talked to me all the time and— If I was upset, he made me feel better, or he told me jokes, or—"

Amy thinks about Kerry's panic attack in the clothing store. "So when you were inside, Cary didn't just take care of body stuff. He managed your emotions, just like Divad manages David's emotions."

"Wow," Kerry says, taking that in. "Um, yeah. I guess he did."

"That must have been second nature to him," Amy says. "You were inside him, he felt how you felt, so— He soothed you as if he was soothing himself. Working that way your whole lives— It was so natural for both of you, you didn't even think about it. But Cary doesn't do that anymore, right?"

"Yeah," Kerry realizes. "Does that mean— He doesn't want to?"

"I think— Seeing you physically apart from him— it changes how he sees you. You're not an extension of him anymore, you're a separate person, and he's treating you as a separate person."

"But we're not," Kerry insists. "He's supposed to be inside." She holds her body like she's trying to soothe some physical pain inside her. And she said being outside hurts... 

"I think being inside is just as scary for him as being outside is scary for you," Amy offers. "The Davids are figuring out how to share again. I think you and Cary need to figure out how to share again, too."

"I tried," Kerry pouts.

"Then try again," Amy says. "Remember how hard it was to get David to listen? All of us can be that way. If it's important, we have to keep trying."

Kerry sighs. "I just want things to be the way they were."

"Do you?" Amy asks. "You wouldn't be friends with David the way you are now, if you were still inside Cary all the time. You wouldn't have eaten cherry pie together yesterday."

Kerry smiles at the memory. "I guess. It's just—" She hugs herself again.

"I know," Amy says. She opens her arms, and Kerry almost throws herself into them, clinging as desperately as David used to, as he still does sometimes. Amy's been sharing touch and hugs almost the entire morning, and every hug makes her feel calmer, more connected, more herself, and it does the same for everyone she's with. She never thought of hugging as medicine, but that's how it feels. Or maybe it's her mutant power, even though she’s only human.

Through the mainframe, Amy hears the relay come on, the Davids' thoughts and voices flowing into the data streams. 

'Oliver,' Amy calls through the mainframe, 'Can you wait to share the relay with Cary and Kerry? They have system work to do down here.'

'Of course,' Oliver replies.

Amy turns her attention back to her physical environment and to Kerry. "How about we go back to the lab? We can talk to Lenny, and then we can both talk to Cary."

Kerry doesn't look thrilled at the idea of doing either, but she nods.

§

As they take the elevator back to the lab, Amy reaches out to Lenny through the mainframe.

'We're coming back,' she warns. She sends Lenny the recording of the conversation she had with Kerry, sharing the experience with her. Their android bodies are designed for easy sharing, taking advantage of the fact that the mainframe is their collective brain. In seconds, Lenny knows everything.

'Way to make me feel worse,' Lenny grumbles.

'I don't want you to feel worse,' Amy says. 'Did the hugs at least make you feel better?' 

'Eh, a little,' Lenny admits. 'Want me to send you my hug with Kerry?'

'Not funny,' Amy chides. 'You and Kerry are going to fix this before David gets back. And when he does, you're going to tell him everything and show him you're accepting help.'

'This is such bullshit,' Lenny mutters.

'We all need to model for David,' Amy reminds her. 'None of this is easy for me, either.'

'Eh, you love all this touchy-feely crap.'

'I don't love hearing David hurt himself,' Amy says. Whether it's Dvd hurting Divad or Divad hurting David or David hurting himself, it breaks her heart to have to listen to all of it and let it happen. But the Davids need to learn to stop hurting their system. All of them can help, but the Davids have to do the work themselves.

'Yeah, that part sucks,' Lenny agrees. 'Hey, what's up with Dvd and David? When Syd finds out, she's gonna be jealous.'

'Don't you dare say anything,' Amy warns. They already know what kind of relationship Dvd and David used to have when they were teenagers, Dvd couldn't help but think about it, mourn for it, when Lenny got them drunk. They weren’t sure how they’d handle that particular revelation, but David has been coming back to it naturally, even without his memories. It seems to be— How they work.

'It's certainly unusual,' Amy admits. 'But Dvd and David aren't actually brothers. If it helps David to love himself—'

Amy reminds herself that Farouk already knows everything. They can't afford denial. Love is what will save them, they hope, but if they don't help that love become healthy and strong, Farouk will weaponize it. Again.

At least the two of them are talking. And right now, in the garden, Dvd is finally starting to open up about the depths of his feelings. And David is accepting them, returning them, seeing Dvd as the light bulb in his rocket lamp. It's really terribly sweet.

But Divad's thoughts fill with regret and jealousy, grief and fear. Divad still needs so much help, but like Syd his response to stress is to lock down his emotions and isolate himself. They didn't want to have to force him to open up, but they're running out of time. David is ready to take on the real work of healing his system, his relationships. They have to help him do that.

They reach the lab and Amy lowers her awareness of the mainframe feed, telling Lenny to do the same and trusting Ptonomy to handle things up on the roof. He'll share the experience with them later so they don't miss anything, so they can review David's therapy from their own perspectives. Sharing Ptonomy's experiences has helped her so much. He's been rubbing off on her with his ability to stay calm and outwardly focused, with his practiced expertise in handling just the kind of crisis Amy is soothing and resolving now. And she's been helping him to allow himself to be cared for, to have more compassion. Ptonomy has also been a caregiver for most of his life. It's not a big leap to mix a little bit of him into her, and her into him.

It's not just David and Lenny. They're all cocktails, to a degree; all mixtures of the people in their lives, in their hearts. That's simply how everyone works. As with so many things, Farouk took what was natural and abused it for his own ends. 

Amy gives Kerry another hug. "You can do this," she promises. "I'll be right with you every step of the way, okay?"

"Okay," Kerry echoes. She's very nervous, but she's brave and determined, too. If they can help her heal her system with Cary, that will help the Davids heal theirs. And the situation with Lenny is just as important. If Kerry and Lenny can show that mistakes don't have to be disasters, that they can be resolved with compassion and understanding instead of punishment, that will help all the Davids stop punishing their system.

Lenny is sitting in the same beanbag chair she was in before, this time with Matilda settled contentedly on her lap. Lenny is petting her, and doesn't stop as they approach. Cary is sitting on the sofa, studying printouts, and he looks up at their approach.

"Kerry," Cary says, immediately concerned.

"I'm okay," Kerry says. She sits down on the loveseat and Amy sits next to her and takes her hand. Kerry squeezes back. Cary's eyes flicker with longing, but he doesn't say anything.

He does want to be with Kerry again. He needs it just as much as she does. But they can't be how they were, so they need to figure out what being together means for them now. Amy hasn't ever heard their thoughts, but they're a system like the Davids, they have an intense closeness like she does with David, like Syd does with David. System, family, or lover— The need for closeness feels so much the same. That's just how everyone works, too.

She wonders if that's how Farouk works. She wonders about Walter and Benny. There are plenty of people who don't regret hurting other people, and too many who take pleasure in it. Farouk tried to frame David as one of those people, tried to make him like them. And yet he claims to want David's love, he seems to crave it. Is it simply— The human need for attachment combined with a pathological lack of empathy? Or was living inside of David for thirty years enough to mix some of David's intense need for love into Amahl Farouk?

Kerry. Amy has to focus on her physical environment, on Kerry and Lenny and Cary. She can't allow herself to drift. She saves the thought for later so she doesn't lose it, and focuses on the feeling of Kerry's hand in her own.

"Hey, kid," Lenny says to Kerry. "Sorry about before."

Kerry gives Lenny a skeptical look. "Amy told me about how you're Benny sometimes. Benny's a jerk and I don't like him."

Lenny gives a wry snort. "Yeah, well, I'm not a big fan either. It's just—" She struggles with what to say. "The world's been shit to me. I'm doing this so I can make it less shit, you get me?"

"Then be Lenny, not Benny," Kerry tells her.

"I'm trying," Lenny says, letting her frustration show. "See? I'm getting my touch therapy so my mind doesn't dissolve."

Kerry is disturbed by that, and softens. "I don't want your mind to dissolve. You're kinda weird, but you're helping David."

"I'm the weird one?" Lenny says, astonished. "I'm the least weird out of all you freaks."

"Yeah, you're the weird one," Kerry says back. "You're super weird. You're two people but they can't even be apart. You should kick Benny out so I can punch him."

Lenny stares at her, speechless, then laughs. "Kid, I wish I could. Maybe I should get the actual Benny in here and string him up for you." 

In the mainframe, Amy sees Lenny's question go out, and then just like that, there's the answer.

"What's wrong?" Kerry asks, seeing Lenny's expression.

"Shit," Lenny says, taken aback. "I'm dead. I mean, Benny's dead. He died, like, years ago."

"I'm sorry," Amy says.

"I'm sorry," Cary says. "What happened to him?"

"Being a junkie happened," Lenny says. "I was always mooching off of David. He was. Whatever." She shakes her head as if to clear it. "David went to Clockworks so Benny was on his own. He lasted another couple years then croaked. Overdosed alone. Cops found his body."

Kerry's hand tightens on Amy's, and Amy can see both Kerry and Cary want to offer a comforting hug to Lenny. Amy feels that urge herself. It's hard to resist that when hugging has become so important for all of them. But touching Lenny without permission would be as much a violation as Lenny groping Kerry, even though touch is what Lenny needs to survive.

"Lenny," Amy says, gently. 

"I'm fine," Lenny says, even though she obviously isn't. "Guess it's a good thing I got shoved into that hellhole after all, huh?"

"So Benny’s dead?" Kerry asks. "But he's not dead, because he's inside you, and you're alive?"

"If you can call this alive," Lenny says, shock creeping into her voice. "Shit, I wasn't even alive when I died. I'm not even— _Shit._ "

Oh dear. Amy checks back on the relay and the surveillance system, she might need Ptonomy's help with this. But Ptonomy has his hands full because David just had a shock of his own. They have to handle this themselves.

"You're Lenny, not Benny," Amy reminds her, firmly. "You've always been Lenny, no matter what Farouk did to you. You survived, just like David."

"What, I need the foundation speech now?" Lenny asks, and now panic is creeping in. "Lenny is Lenny? Are you gonna tell me I didn't deserve what happened to me?"

"Of course you didn't," Cary says. He pauses, then: "I'm sorry for being so harsh before. Your situation is very similar to David's and— Of course it's not acceptable for you to hurt Kerry, any more than it was acceptable for David to hurt Syd. But we're helping David and we want to help you."

"I'm not your patient," Lenny sneers. "I'm done with that shit."

"You are our patient, for detachment syndrome if nothing else," Cary reminds her. 

Amy has a sense of deja vu. Lenny helped them get through to Syd, to get her to accept the help she needs and stop fighting every inch of the way. And now Lenny needs the same help. What helped David and Syd start to help themselves? 

Syd needed to know that love could help her survive. Touch and friendship helped her feel like it was safe to let down her guard. David needed hope that there was something in him worth loving, worth saving. He chose to live when Amy was saved, when he got back something he thought he'd lost forever, when— He got proof that the things Farouk took could be taken back. And Lenny? 

Amy checks the mainframe, and the answer comes to her.

"Lenny," Amy says, meeting her eyes. "I know this is very difficult for you. But you didn't survive everything Farouk put you through just to give up now. You're stronger than that. You need to get better for yourself. You need to let us help you so you can live, so Farouk can never make you his doll again."

The panic starts to fade from Lenny's eyes. "Yeah," she says, more to herself than Amy. "Yeah, fuck the shit beetle."

"Fuck the shit beetle," Amy agrees. "And yes, Lenny is Lenny. I knew the real Benny, you know I did. My memories of him are real and whole. And you're not him, you were never him. You're Lenore Busker and Farouk took you because you helped David, because you loved him, because he loved you and trusted you. And David was right to. Everyone else failed him, but you didn't. Whatever ideas Farouk put into your head, they're not who you are."

Lenny holds Matilda close and struggles to accept Amy's words. "Shit," she breathes. "I'm gonna have to get one of those fucking notebooks." She sounds resigned, annoyed, relieved. Amy knows that means she'll be okay.

"They do seem to help," Cary says. "I'm thinking that Kerry and I could use one ourselves."

"You are?" Kerry asks, turning to Cary in surprise.

"The Davids have their system notebook," Cary says. "I thought perhaps—" He hesitates. "I'm sorry about last night. I know we need to—" He hesitates again, afraid. "I'm such a coward."

"You're not a coward," Kerry says, sternly. "Just because you don't like to fight— You've always taken care of me and kept me safe, you're always helping people, and— I have to help you the way you always help me. I have to help you be inside the way you help me be outside."

"Why don't you two go talk?" Amy suggests. She doesn't think Kerry needs her help anymore, at least not for this. "I'll stay with Lenny."

"The garden's taken," Cary says to Kerry. "Should we go back to our room?"

"No, let's—" Kerry says, thinking. "Let's go to the cafeteria."

"You're sure?" Cary asks, surprised.

"Yeah," Kerry says. "We can get some hot chocolate and drink it together. That's our thing, right? Like David and cherry pie."

Cary relaxes, smiles for her. "Hot chocolate it is," he agrees. They stand to leave and Cary looks back at Amy and Lenny. "Should we bring something back for everyone?"

Amy checks on the garden again. Dvd is agreeing to have his first session with Syd. David's laid out on a bench, feeling sick. She thinks about how he said he missed eating. She doesn't want to associate David's favorite treats with him feeling sick, but perhaps—

"Cheese on toast and some fruit," she decides. That's what David used to eat when he wasn't feeling well. "David likes cherries and grapes. Syd likes melon. I'm not sure what Oliver likes."

"I remember," Cary says. "We'll be back soon." He and Kerry hug, then he takes her hand and holds it as they leave the lab.

"They’re just, like, toxically sweet," Lenny mutters.

"How many Twizzlers did you and David go through?" Amy asks. "I'm the one who sent the care packages."

"Yeah, yeah," Lenny says, rolling her eyes. 

"It took years for David to admit he gave all his Twizzlers to you," Amy says. "But you shared them back with him. He loves you very much, and I know you love him. He doesn't want to lose you."

"I know," Lenny sighs. "I've heard it. David's not shy about slobbering his love all over us in his thoughts. He might not like dogs anymore, but he is such a giant puppy, I swear."

Amy smiles. For all the pain she hears through the relay, there's so much love, too. 

"I am sorry about Benny," Amy tells her. "Once I got David away from him, I didn't care what happened to him. David still thinks he's alive somewhere."

"Guess we'll break the news," Lenny says. "Probably gonna bum him out."

"That's because he remembers you, not Benny," Amy points out. "Dvd and Divad remember the real Benny, too. Maybe— It might help for us to talk together about him. We can do some untangling."

"Yeah, maybe," Lenny says, not thrilled but not ruling it out either. "Another Irish wake?"

"Without the whiskey this time," Amy says. "But I do have something that I think will help you feel better."

"Gonna hit me with more hug memories?" Lenny asks, and she doesn't look thrilled at the idea.

"I was reading up on haphephobia," Amy says. "Most people with haphephobia aren't like Syd. They've been hurt so their bodies react defensively to touch. But touch is calming, it's what they need to heal. The have to re-engage with their bodies so they can recognize the emotions they're feeling, so they can get used to touch and accept it again."

"So?" Lenny says, and Amy's sure she's intentionally missing the point.

"So that's what you need for your haphephobia."

"You must be confusing me with someone else," Lenny says. "Blonde, five foot five, icy glare?" At Amy's pointed look, she huffs. "I'm fine with touch. It's just gotta be the right kind."

"Sex," Amy says. She's hardly going to forget watching through Lenny's eyes at that drug-fuelled party. New Janine and Lenny certain enjoyed their debauchery.

"Fuck yeah, sex," Lenny says. "You wanna know what keeps me going? Hot chicks, sugar, and whatever mind-altering substances I can get my hands on. And I can't do any of that in this thing. At least in the mainframe I could rub one off."

Lenny did indeed rub one off in the mainframe, more than once. Amy and Ptonomy politely ignored it, like they ignored her loud music and her insults.

"I miss having a real body, too," Amy says. "But until we get them, touch is the best treatment for us. It's what's going to keep us who we are for as long as possible, so we can help David end this nightmare once and for all."

"So what's your big idea?" Lenny asks, grudgingly.

"This isn't a choice between sex and hugs," Amy says. "There are many kinds of touch. We just have to find one you're able to accept. Can we give it a try? Unless you want to hold Matilda for the next week or two?"

"God no," Lenny says. "I'm already covered in fur. Syd wears solid black, how does she not look like a walking shag carpet?"

"She uses a lint roller," Amy says, fondly amused. "We can both use it after we figure out how to give you touch."

"Ugh, fine," Lenny grumbles. "Just tell me what to do."

"Let's take the sofa," Amy says, moving over. 

Lenny lets Matilda go and tries in vain to brush herself off. Then she walks around the coffee table and lands on the sofa with a huff.

"How about holding hands?" Amy asks. She holds a hand out, palm up.

Lenny gives her hand the side-eye, but reaches out to take it. When her palm touches Amy's, she pulls her hand back like Amy's hand is a hot stove. "No," she says, firmly.

"No hugging, no holding hands," Amy accepts. "Can we sit side-by-side?"

They try it. Lenny lasts a little longer, but not long enough. "Maybe I should go get the cat," Lenny sighs.

"How about something less intimate?" Amy suggests. "We can sit with just our legs together."

They sit with their backs towards the arms of the sofa, Amy's leg flush with Lenny's leg. 

"Yeah," Lenny says, taking it in. "This is okay."

They sit this way for a few minutes. 

"Still good?" Amy asks.

"Yeah," Lenny says. "Maybe, uh, we can try another one? See what else works?"

"Of course," Amy says, pleased. "You know, the material I read said that the most important part of this is for you to be fully in control of the experience. I think that's how sex is for you. You were certainly in control of New Janine."

"Ha! I was," Lenny says, smugly. "Just call me the Queen."

"You can look her up again when you get your new body," Amy says. "She was very fond of you."

"Yeah, maybe," Lenny says. "So what's touch where I'm in control?"

"Stand up," Amy instructs. "I'll turn my back to you. You hug me. I won't touch you. But don't get handsy or Kerry will punch you in the face."

Lenny laughs. "She totally would. Girl's got a mean right hook."

Amy stands and holds still, her arms slightly spread, her posture relaxed. Lenny steps up close to her and reaches around her waist. Amy tenses for a moment, remembering— Farouk as Lenny, taking her, menacing her— 

But Lenny isn't Farouk. She holds Amy and rests against her back and—

"Fuck," Lenny breathes, snuggling her. She shifts her grip, and for another moment Amy thinks Lenny is going to give in to her Benny urges again—

But the moment passes. Lenny settles into the hug, soaking in it, calming. Amy calms, too.

"Better?" Amy asks, after a while.

"Mm hmm," Lenny says, and doesn't let go. "Thanks. For the Twizzlers."

"Anytime," Amy promises.


	89. Day 11: Four hours isn't enough for me.

Cary's confidence lasts exactly as long as it takes for him and Kerry to pick up their hot chocolates from the service window and sit down opposite each other at a table. 

He doesn't think he can do this. He's such a coward. But sitting close to Kerry like this, the ache he feels is even stronger, pulling for him to just— Let go. Be inside her, let them be whole together. If they don't talk about this now, the choice may very well be taken away from them, and it will be like before, painful and frightening and—

Kerry reaches out to take his hand, comfort him, and isn't that just another sign of how things are now? Of this utter transformation they've endured? Hardly obvious from the outside, when they're apart, and yet—

They're different. He's different. He can feel it, he—

He musters a smile for her and squeezes her hand. She smiles back.

"We need to talk," Cary says, more to himself than to her. "About— Being inside."

"Yeah," Kerry agrees. "I talked to Amy about it. She asked, um, what being inside meant for me."

"What does it mean?" Cary asks, and feels like a fool for not asking the question himself in the first place. He hasn't handled this whole situation very well at all, first by failing to help Kerry with the transition and then by doing a terrible job with himself. Thank goodness for Amy and the Davids.

"I think I'm still figuring that out," Kerry admits. "I didn't need to think about it before, it was just how I was. I was inside, and you took care of me, and— Even when I came out— That wasn't really me. I was just— Part of you. Is that how you felt?"

"Yes," Cary admits. "Perhaps that's why I never fully encouraged you to have your own life. I felt you should, of course, but—" 

But what? He'd first tried to coax Kerry to come out in front of others just to finally have proof that she wasn't all in his head. And once he had that proof, once he accepted the label of mutant instead of mentally ill— 

Melanie and Oliver gradually helped Kerry to stay outside, to be with them as an individual. Melanie did most of the hard work. Cary was fully supportive of Kerry then, of course, but Kerry was still so physically young. It took decades for her to age the first few years. Her body first manifested with a physical age of eight, the same as he was at the time, and after that— 

It's hard to say exactly how old Kerry's body is now. Perhaps nineteen, twenty? He tried to keep track at first, counting the hours, adding them up to days, weeks, years, but precision was difficult. She's only existed outside of him for perhaps a dozen years in total, a mere fraction of their shared life. But it didn't matter because— That body wasn't truly her. It was just something she wore. Her natural state was inside him.

"I suppose I didn't want you to stay outside of me," Cary admits. "And now— We're reversed. And I feel—"

He feels terrified of everything that will mean.

"Yeah," Kerry says, soberly. "I like being outside, most of the time, but— It hurts. And I don't think it's supposed to hurt?"

"It isn't," he admits. "But I— I'm very afraid. I want us to be together, to be whole. But I don't want to give up— Being me, being— My own person, with my own identity, my own relationships, my own purpose. I don't want to simply— Hide and— Surrender who I am— To you."

Kerry's hurt by his words. There was no way for him to say them in a way that wouldn't hurt her. He tried to tell her before but she didn't hear him. 

"I don't want you to hide," Kerry insists. "I know I said that before, but—"

"What if it isn't our choice?" Cary asks. "What if— You didn't hide because you were afraid? What if— You had to be inside? Until all of this, the longest we were ever apart was last year, when you left with Syd and Ptonomy. And those few days were— Terribly difficult for me. I needed you back so much. I told myself it was psychological, that it was— Simple dependence, but— And then you were shot, and— I never asked— If it was difficult for you."

"Being shot was," Kerry says, trying to lighten the mood with a joke. "But, um— Yeah. It was hard for me, too, but— I just thought— Being outside was— It was always scary anyway, so— I just had to get through it."

"I did the math," Cary admits. "At a generous estimate— For every twenty-four hours, you could only have spent perhaps four hours outside of me. On average, of course. Some days you didn't come out at all, or barely stepped out for a few minutes. And I can't— Four hours isn't enough for me."

Four hours a day— Even the Davids each get more than that, give or take, and there are three of them sharing one body. Cary and Kerry have two separate bodies they can use and yet— Four hours.

"Sleep shouldn't count," Kerry defends. "We sleep for, like, six hours, so— Four out of eighteen?" She immediately gives up the attempt. "I don't know. But I didn't go back inside after four hours because it hurt. I went back because I wanted to. Maybe once you start, you'll just— Want to."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Cary says. "That spending more time as you than me— I'll lose who I am. How could I not? We are, at least in part, our actions, our environment— Being outside helped make me who I am. Being outside to work, to learn, to help people, to socialize—"

"We didn't need to socialize," Kerry insists.

"We did," Cary says. "I did. I know I'm not exactly— A social butterfly. Much of the time— I isolate myself with work, with— Fear of— Rejection, not being— Wanted." He gives her a meaningful look. "But I never worried about you. I always knew you wanted me, you accepted me. I could be with you and— That meant I was never alone."

"You won't be alone when you're inside me," Kerry says. "I'll always be with you, the way you were always with me." She looks hurt. "Or you were. Even though we're still together all day— You don't take care of me anymore."

"I can't," Cary says, apologetic. "You need to be in the world, you need to be independent. I'm so much older than you, when I die—"

"How can you die if— If we're the same person?" Kerry asks. "If we're— A system like the Davids, if we have one soul, then— How can you ever leave me?"

"I don't know," Cary admits. "I don't even know that we are a system. We've been so many things, Kerry. You were my imaginary friend, and then you were a symptom, and then— We were mutants. We are mutants."

"The Davids are mutants, too," Kerry says. "Maybe— We're a system and mutants."

Cary can't help but think of Syd telling David he had powers and he was sick. Like the crown, somehow that pain has come back around to him. Despite his words of comfort to David— It was a tremendous relief to leave the label of sickness behind. Just as it was for David last year. 

When Melanie and Oliver found Cary, they gave him the same speech they gave so many mutants. What if the story of his life, the story of sickness and societal rejection, was a lie? What if the things that isolated him were the very things that could make him belong? If he wasn't crazy, he could be accepted, he could give back, he could live happily ever after.

It was far more complicated than that, of course. Life is never as simple as a story. But Cary accepted the story into himself just as David did. He built his new life on that foundation. And now— Just as with David, that foundation may crumble.

"If we're a system," Cary asks, feeling the question in his very soul, "then who are we?"

Kerry frowns. "We're Kerry and Cary," she says, like that's the only possible answer.

"The Davids are essentially a single person," Cary says. "The split mind of David Haller. Though they're all individuals— At one point they were one person. Listening to their thoughts— I could hear how— Despite that separation— There’s still an underlying wholeness to them. It is possible for DID identities to fuse, to— heal the split. But it’s very difficult, must be purely consensual, and requires enormous mental work."

Kerry's eyes widen. "You mean the Davids could just be a single David again?"

"They could," Cary admits. "But the more individuated the identities, the less such a fusion is possible or even desirable. As difficult as it's been for them to heal from what Farouk did to them— I don't think the Davids would want that. Their individual identities are just as important to them as the companionship they share. Just as it is for us."

"Well, yeah," Kerry says, like it's obvious. "So what's the problem?"

Cary doesn't know how to answer that. He feels ashamed that there's still that stubborn thorn lodged in his heart that says _normal_. He thought he'd got it out, accepting being a mutant, but it was only hiding, lying in wait for the next moment of doubt.

"If we're a system," Cary starts, "How were we born like this? What made us this way? What would we have been if our mind hadn't split? Being mutants from birth— There's nothing strange about that. But I don't know if there's ever been— A mental split in the womb. That shouldn't even be possible."

"So what? Mutants do impossible stuff all the time," Kerry says. "David turned a gun into a mop. He made a giant monster tiny and squashed it with his brain. He can teleport and read minds and _fly_."

Cary realizes that Kerry simply isn’t capable of the kind of existential angst that plagues both himself and David. She just accepts things as they are. She's never truly known any other way to be than how she is. She never suffered through ostracism and uncertainty and turbulent self-knowledge the way Cary and David have. And that's a relief, it's everything Cary ever wanted for her, but— It's also a fundamental difference between them: in worldview, in character, in imagination. As much as Cary needed to talk to Kerry about this— She isn't the right person to _talk to_ about it. David is.

But should he do that? David took Cary’s words so much to heart. Would his own doubts risk making David's situation more unstable? Or would it help him feel less alone, the way the Davids have helped Cary and Kerry feel less alone?

"Perhaps you're right," Cary says, accepting Kerry's answer on the matter for now. "We are what we are. But we still need to figure out how we work as a system now. I don't think we ever truly tried to figure that out with our old system. We simply accepted things as they were."

"Maybe we should ask Syd to help us," Kerry offers. "She can tell us if we're one soul or two."

"That certainly is the direct option," Cary allows. "As scientists, it's always preferable to have a confirmable test to rest a hypothesis on. If we are two minds with one soul, then Syd's powers will reveal that. And if we each have our own soul—" He pauses. "Then presumably one of us would swap with Syd and the other would remain behind, the way Lenny and Amy's swap worked."

"And if we share a soul, then obviously you're not going to die before me," Kerry says, pleased at the idea. "Because we're like the Davids and we'll always be together."

That thought would be more reassuring if Cary didn't have so many concerns about what kind of life he'll have if his physical body fails but his mind and soul survive. It seems likely that in such a scenario— He would become an identity like any in a typical, co-conscious DID system. He'd be trapped in Kerry's body for the rest of their shared life, completely lose his autonomy— 

He hoped talking to Kerry about all this would ease his worries, but it's only made them worse.

Four hours a day. He wouldn't be a passenger, he'd be a prisoner. No wonder the Davids figured out a way to share together. But their physical appearances all match their body. If one day Cary has to share Kerry's body with her— 

It's too much for him to deal with right now. And hopefully it's all very far in the future. They have to deal with the practical concerns, the immediate problems.

"When I went inside before," Cary begins. "The first time was— Extremely difficult for both of us." A massive understatement. Their physical union was incomplete, and then when Cary finally got all of himself inside, it was terribly uncomfortable for both of them — so much that Cary had to go to their inner world for relief and had trouble getting back out again.

"The second time wasn't so bad."

"You weren't conscious," Cary points out. "And once I went inside you, neither was I. When we woke up, you had to pull me out."

"Maybe we just need to practice," Kerry offers. "And just because I liked to stay inside doesn't mean you have to. I want us to have healthy multiplicity like the Davids. But we can't figure out what that is if we stay apart so much that— That we're hurting our system. We're hurting our system, Cary. That's bad!"

He can hardly deny that she's right. 

"I know you're scared," Kerry says, sympathetic. "But I'm outside now, and that means I have to take care of you."

"Does it?" Cary asks, genuinely. 

"Obviously," Kerry says. "Everything's reversed. So I'll just do what you did, and you do what I did, and we'll be fine."

"I don't think I can accept that," Cary protests. 

"Why not?" Kerry asks, frustrated. "Everything was fine before."

"Everything wasn't fine," Cary insists. "I know we thought it was, but— Everything that's happened— What we had together, it was— It wasn't healthy." How could it have been healthy for Kerry to only be outside of him for four hours a day? How could he have allowed himself to hold her back for the sake of his own selfish dependence? "I shouldn't have needed that monster's cruelty to compel me to help you learn to be in the world."

"I liked how we were," Kerry says, upset. "I felt safe and loved and— And I kept you safe. Our system was perfect."

"You didn't have anyone but me," Cary replies. "By doing everything for both of us— I made you completely dependent. You didn't even understand yourself, you told me that."

"I didn't need to! And I didn't have to deal with all this stupid outside stuff and bodies and—" Her anger breaks and her chin crumples.

"Oh, Kerry," Cary says, upset himself now. The last thing he wanted was to make her cry. "I'm so sorry. I—" He doesn't know what to do. He's the one who upset her, and he can't even comfort her inside him the way he used to. 

Nothing is the way it used to be. And as painful as that is, he's faced worse hardships, greater confusion. Kerry hasn't. She doesn't just not know how to be outside. By sheltering her from conflict, by soothing her at the slightest hint of upset— He prevented her from learning how to manage her own feelings, to protect herself beyond— Physical violence.

He just wanted to protect her, to keep her safe from all the terrible things he suffered. But what he did was keep her from truly growing up.

He needs to correct that now, but— He can't just throw her in the deep end and expect her to figure everything out at once. He thinks about those magazines and all the questions she had. They went over them together, but it quickly became clear that he tried to give her too much too soon. She lacked the context to even begin to understand. They were just as opaque to her as the clothing store and Ptonomy's fashion advice. 

For decades, Cary taught her everything he learned, so she would know everything he knows. So she would be prepared to deal with the world. But knowledge wasn't enough. Kerry can only develop as a person with personal experience, and Cary can't give her that. He can only let it happen. But it breaks his heart to see her hurting, and it smashes his heart to pieces to be the reason for her tears.

Maybe— Maybe he needs to talk to Amy, too. Maybe he and Kerry need to talk to Ptonomy together. Cary feels hopelessly out of his depth. But worse than that— He's hurting their system. He's letting his fear hurt both of them, just like he let his fear hurt Kerry for decades. If he's honest with himself, his fear has always hurt both of them. For all the work he's done, for all the so-called wisdom he's shared with David and Syd— He's never been able to fully overcome the traumas he suffered. He's let fear hold him back as much as it's held back Kerry. And now Kerry simply wants to repeat everything he's done to her, and she can't see how wrong it is, because— It's all she's ever known.

'I hate to interrupt,' Oliver says, his thoughts in Cary's head. 'But Ptonomy wanted me to let you know we'll be returning to the lab soon.'

'Thank you,' Cary thinks back. 'We'll— Be up soon.'

Cary sighs. As much as Kerry might want to be the caretaker in their relationship, the fact is that responsibility is still Cary's, no matter what else has changed. She's simply doing what he taught her to do. As with the Davids, healthy behavior has to be seen to be learned. What's been modelled that he can use to salvage this situation?

"You're right," he tells Kerry, bracing himself. "About healthy multiplicity and practicing and— Working together to figure out how we can both be happy. I shouldn't never have let my fear keep us apart. I love you and— You love me. That's what matters."

Kerry's chin stops wobbling. "You mean it?"

"I do," Cary says. "I don't want to hurt our system anymore. Can you please forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you," Kerry says, breaking into a teary smile. Perhaps he didn't do a completely terrible job raising Kerry. 

She throws her arms open wide, and Cary knows it's not just for a hug.

He can do this. He just needs to practice. And he doesn't have to stay inside forever. Even if it's difficult, Kerry will help him, and it will get easier to be inside, just like being outside is getting easier for Kerry.

He has to trust that it will get easier. He has to trust Kerry or their system will never heal.

"Okay," he agrees. "Just— Give me a moment."

Kerry lowers her arms, but looks at him with eager expectation. In truth he feels the same, the need to unite is so strong. But he's afraid despite that. He's never done well with physical pain, even discomfort. But he'll do anything for Kerry. He took her wounds for her. He can do this for her, for their system, whether they're truly a DID system or not.

'Oliver, tell Ptonomy I'll be unavailable for a while,' Cary thinks to Oliver. 'Kerry will bring up some snacks for everyone.'

'Snacks, wonderful,' Oliver thinks back. 'What are we having?'

'Cheese on toast and fruit. I ordered your favorite,' Cary says. 'Cinnamon persimmons.'

'Do I like persimmons?' Oliver asks.

Cary's heart pangs. 'Very much,' he assures Oliver. 

'Excellent,' Oliver says. 'I look forward to them.'

Cary's very glad Oliver is here for this. No matter how deep inside of Kerry he is, Oliver will always be able to hear him. Oliver was a lifeline for Kerry at the beginning, and he's a lifeline for Cary now.

In the end, it's easy. He just has to relax and follow the pull, just like he did when he found Kerry in the red-lit halls of Division 3, her teeth chattering as she stood in the thrall of the monk's virus. But once he's inside, even though the pain of separation is gone, everything still feels wrong. He was never meant to fit into Kerry this way. He grieves the loss of everything they had, of everything he was for her, for himself, and lets himself go deeper until he doesn't feel anything at all.


	90. Day 11: You can have my cherries.

They're taking the elevator back to the lab when Oliver presses the button for another floor. 

"Oliver?" Syd asks, concerned.

"Everything's okay," Ptonomy tells her. "Oliver and I have to make an extra stop. Kerry and Cary are in the cafeteria, and— They need our help. Syd, can you take the Davids back to the lab and wait for us?"

David's still shaky from all the session work and Dvd's possession, but— If Kerry and Cary need them—

'Cary— We have to go down there,' Divad thinks.

'We have to help Kerry,' Dvd thinks.

"No, we— We want to help," David says, relaying for his brothers and himself. 

"Are you sure?" Ptonomy asks. 

'Yes,' Dvd and David each think. "Yes," David says, feeling— Strikingly full of agreement. He looks at his brothers. They might all be struggling with a lot right now, but they all feel the same way about Cary and Kerry. 

Yesterday, Divad said Kerry was their real foundation, and maybe she is. David couldn't have made it this far without Kerry or Cary. None of them could have. His system owes both of them so much, if there's anything they can do to help—

They reach the cafeteria and find Kerry. Two of the cafeteria staff are with her, and she's crying.

"Where's Cary?" David asks, looking around. 

"Inside me," Kerry sobs. "I made him go and now—" She hiccups. "Now he's gone!"

"You can't hear him?" Ptonomy asks. "Can you feel him?"

"Sort of," Kerry admits. "But— It felt better and then it hurt and then— I don't know. I don't know how to be outside and Cary doesn't know how to be inside but it's not supposed to be like this." She sniffs and wipes at her eyes.

"Oliver?" Ptonomy prompts. 

Oliver listens. "Cary's resting, but dissociating very deeply. Quite similar to when David goes away."

"We stayed apart so long," Kerry mourns. "What if we broke?"

"How long has it been?" Ptonomy asks. 

"Since the monk died," Kerry admits. "We were supposed to sleep together last night but Cary didn't want to. But it hurt so much. I thought it hurt because being outside was scary but Cary hurt, too."

"Okay," Ptonomy soothes. "I spoke with Cary about this. I think— You were apart for a little too long. And being inside is very difficult for Cary, so— He's doing what he has to for the sake of your system, so the pain you're both feeling can stop. Does that make sense?"

Kerry sniffs again. "I guess. But if he's inside, he's supposed to talk to me. He's supposed to—"

"Your system can't work the way it used to," Ptonomy reminds her. "Just like the Davids. You need to figure out how you work now and that's going to take time, and you have to do it together."

David feels a little like he's having an out of body experience. Of course this is how Ptonomy's been handling things for his system, but— It's different, seeing him help someone else the same way. It's surreal, but— Weirdly soothing.

"But we can deal with all of that later," Ptonomy continues. "It doesn't hurt anymore, right?"

Kerry shakes her head, agreeing.

"Then we’ll let Cary rest so you can both heal," Ptonomy says. "Oliver said you were getting everyone a snack?"

"Um, yeah," Kerry says, and the task seems to help her, give her something to focus on. She looks up at David. "Amy said to get you, um, cheese on toast. And fruit."

David recognizes the sick day comfort food. The thought of Amy eases something in him. She loves him so much, she always has.

'Yeah, til she threw us away,' Dvd grumbles.

David looks at Divad, curious.

"I don't know how I feel," Divad admits. "Can we talk about this later? Ptonomy's making us talk to Amy anyway."

"We are definitely talking about this later," David tells both of them. He felt such harmony with them for Kerry and Cary. He wants to feel the same harmony for Amy. And maybe— When he can finally work out his feelings for Syd—

"Can we just focus on Kerry?" Dvd says, annoyed. 

"Sorry," David says. He really needs to stop letting his mind wander. What was Kerry saying? 

"Cheese on toast," Divad reminds him.

Right. "I love cheese on toast," David tells Kerry. He sits down opposite her. "Have you ever tried it?"

Kerry shakes her head. "It's like a sandwich, right? I've had sandwiches. They're chewy." Kerry wrinkles her nose. She’s not a fan of chewy. 

"They're a little different," David says. He wants to cheer Kerry up. She really liked eating cherry pie with him yesterday, maybe— "Is the food ready?" he asks the cafeteria servers. 

"We'll bring it right out," one of them says, and returns to the kitchen. 

"Cheese on toast isn't chewy," David tells Kerry. "It's crisp and warm and gooey."

"Is it sweet?" Kerry asks. "You like a lot of sweet stuff."

"I do," David admits. "It’s not sweet. Amy used to make this for me when— When I felt sick."

It wasn't just Amy who made it. It must have also been Mom.

"Yeah," Divad sighs. 'If I'm stuck with David hearing everything, I might as well just say things aloud.'

'Mom made it better,' Dvd grumbles.

"Mom taught Amy to make it, they made it exactly the same," Divad chides.

"David?" Kerry prompts.

"Sorry," David says, trying to focus. "Um, Divad and Dvd are finally letting me hear their thoughts, so— It's a little noisy in here." He points at his head. Their head. His head. Their head? Whatever. "We were supposed to, um, make our foundation together, but—" He looks at Syd, and she gives him a little smile. It makes David feel a lot of things all at once.

Dvd glares furiously at her. No thoughts, everything he's conveying is physical.

"She's trying," Divad tells Dvd. 'We've all hurt David. We have to forgive each other so we can forgive ourselves.' But he looks at David and his eyes fill with guilt.

"Oh!" Kerry says. "Oliver, you're supposed to send us the relay."

"We all thought it best to wait," Oliver says. "Would you like it now?"

"Yeah, of course," Kerry says. "If Cary's just gonna sleep—" She looks hurt, but rallies. "I wanna hear the Davids."

"Davids?" Ptonomy asks.

David doesn't even have to ask. He can feel the same harmony he felt before. It feels like— When they were in the amplification tank and everything opened up. "Of course," he says. "We want Kerry to hear us."

Kerry brightens, pleased. David smiles back, and Dvd and Divad are both reluctantly pleased.

"Relaying," Oliver says. "May I join you? The cheese on toast does sound good."

"Let's eat here," Ptonomy says. "Syd?"

Oliver sits next to David, and Syd sits next to Kerry. Ptonomy brings over three chairs, two for Divad and Dvd and one for himself. As soon as everyone is settled, the server returns with their food.

"Melon?" the server asks.

"That's Syd's," Kerry directs. "Oliver gets the one with persimmons. Me and David have cherries and grapes."

The plates are distributed. "And the fifth plate?" the server asks.

"I'm afraid we'll have to send that back," Ptonomy says. "Thank you. And please bring us four waters."

"Of course."

"This is very thoughtful, Kerry, thank you," Syd says, pleased with the melon.

"Cary helped me," Kerry says. "And Amy. We thought— If we have a bunch of little meals instead of three big ones, everybody gets to eat more than once a day." She looks at David, proud and approval-seeking.

"Thank you," David says, genuinely grateful. It does make him feel better, and not just because he gets to eat more than once a day, but— Because they all care about him so much that they thought to do this for him, for his brothers— And Amy knew just what to get him. Because even though she wasn't at the session, she was watching through the mainframe, watching over him, doing everything she could to help.

She's watching now. And that's— It's okay that she's hearing everything, that she knows all the things he's been struggling with, that his system has been struggling with. Knowing she knows— Makes him feel better. Because he knows she loves him.

All because of— Cheese on toast and some fruit. He takes a napkin and wipes his eyes, and then realizes— He's not the only one affected.

'Amy,' Divad thinks, yearning. He's staring at David's plate, not thinking but— Maybe he's remembering?

And Dvd— He must be remembering, too. He remembers everything, after all.

"David, that was so nice," Kerry says, earnestly. "I like Amy a lot, too. She's helping me and Cary with our system. I wasn't sure about her at first, but— She's definitely my friend. But you're still my friend, too. I don't think there's a limit."

"There's no limit," David agrees. He picks up a piece of toast and Kerry mirrors him. They bite together, and David savors the crispness of the toast, the pleasantly salty, fatty taste of the melted cheese. It tastes like home, like love. It's like— The savory equivalent of cherry pie.

"This does not taste like cherries," Kerry tells him, with her mouth full. She makes a face. "It's kinda pokey."

"Try a smaller bite," David says, fondly amused. Kerry had trouble with the cherry pie crust, too, but she really liked the soft, gooey cherries.

He puts down the toast and picks up a cherry. Fresh cherries. He hasn't had fresh cherries in years. Clockworks always had cherry pie but that wasn't the same. This one is deep red and shiny, just like cherries should be. He puts it into his mouth and bites down, breaking the skin so the juices burst onto his tongue.

A memory comes back to him, one he hasn't thought of in— He doesn't know how long. But it's so strong it catches him by surprise. Sitting at the kitchen counter, slicing open cherries and digging out the pits so Amy could use them for a pie, but he kept eating them instead of putting them into the mixing bowl. 

"That was Mom," Divad says, softly. "Mom made the pies, not Amy."

"Oh," David says, jarred back to the present. At first he's upset, but— "The rest of it is real?"

"I can't see the actual memory, but— We remember doing the same thing, but with Mom," Divad says. 

"Amy never made pies?" David asks.

"She helped Mom, but— After Mom died—" Divad looks sad. "We didn't want them anymore. Pie or cherries."

"So cherries—" David starts. "Cherries made us think of Mom?"

"They still make us think of her," Dvd admits.

"You forgot Mom," Divad says. "But then— You started eating cherries again. They made you happy again, like they used to."

David doesn't know what kind of— Semantic or experiential or— 

"It's like the poems," Kerry realizes. "Oliver's weird poems. Cary said they were all Oliver had left, after he forgot everything, but— He still had them because there were so many strong memories connected to them. And now that Oliver's starting to remember, the poems are how he's remembering again. That's what happened at breakfast."

"But my real memories are gone," David says, and that undeniable fact still makes him grieve. 

"That was mostly a real memory, right?" Kerry says. "And you know what your Mom looks like now, so— Just imagine the memory with her."

"Give it a try," Ptonomy encourages. "Take another cherry but don’t bite down yet. Close your eyes and picture the memory. Picture your mom in the kitchen with you. Amy would have been sitting next to you, helping you eat up all those cherries, right?"

"Right," David echoes. He puts another cherry in his mouth and closes his eyes.

"Picture the kitchen," Ptonomy says, in a lulling tone. "The flour on the table. The rolling pin, the crust. The color of the mixing bowl. What color was it?"

It was— Blue. The bowl was blue.

"Maybe it's a nice summer day," Ptonomy continues. "Morning or afternoon?"

Morning. Early, the sunlight bright and new. Dad bought the cherries on the way back from his night work at the observatory. He would bring back bags of cherries overflowing with shiny red. David loved them. He can't remember his father's face, but he remembers the bags.

"You know what he looks like now, too," Ptonomy reminds him. "Think about the photos. Remember their faces and put them back."

Put them back. It's not Amy, Amy's beside him on a kitchen stool. Mom is on the other side of the counter, rolling the crust. There's a ticking clock on the wall with a drawing of a sunflower. The windows are open, and there's clean, fresh air coming in, the sound of the breeze ruffling the leaves outside, morning birds calling, twittering and raven-caws. 

"Your dad was there, tired from work but he loved you, he wanted to stay up to be with you. He drank coffee, right?"

Coffee. He smells coffee. The cherry is warm in his mouth. 

"Remember their faces," Ptonomy says. "Your mom, your dad, smiling at you and Amy. Everyone together. You pick up another cherry to cut open, but it looks so good, you just have to eat it. So you put it in your mouth and bite down. Bite down."

David bites, and the taste of warm cherry juice fills his mouth. He smells coffee. He sees his parents, he sees Amy, he sees—

The memory. It feels so intense, so vivid, so real. Even though it's reconstructed— It's a reconstruction of his truth instead of Farouk's truth.

But it's still not the whole truth. His brothers were there with him. They were— Sharing. They were sharing the cherries together. So he wouldn't have seen them, he would have— Felt them.

But he's not ready to put that feeling into that memory. After what happened with Dvd, that's the last thing he wants. 

"You said you didn't hate me," Dvd pouts. 

"I don't," David tells him. But the feeling of someone else inside him— It's not a good feeling and he doesn't want it in the memory.

'Fuck the shit beetle,' Dvd thinks, upset. 'Fuck him fuck him fuck him.' He stands up and walks over to an empty booth and sits facing away from them.

"Divad, could you go sit with him?" Ptonomy asks. "No one sits alone."

"I'll try," Divad says. He joins Dvd at the booth. 'Look, I know it's awful—'

'It's the worst,' Dvd thinks, glumly.

'Ptonomy's helping us fix this,' Divad tells him. 'Look, I fucked up with this, too. And David wasn't even in danger. I just wanted to be heard.'

'David wasn't in danger today,' Dvd thinks, sad and stubborn.

'He was all the other times you blew shit up and ran off with our body,' Divad thinks back. 'When all this started, what did Ptonomy say? All we have to do is give David space to heal. It's our job to get ready for when David's ready. Let them get him there.'

'I know,' Dvd sighs. 'I still hate it.'

'I hate it too,' Divad admits. 'But it's working so far. He's coming back to us. We're never giving up on him again, right?'

'You'd better not,' Dvd warns, but then— 'You know he can hear us.'

'Yeah,' Divad sighs. 'Look, no matter how hard we tried— We've let things slip. Ptonomy wouldn't have made us do this if he didn't think David was ready. David's gonna learn everything eventually. At least this way we have damage control.' A pause. 'And it's better than letting the shit beetle tell him.'

'Fuck no, that is _not_ happening,' Dvd thinks, fiercely. 'He's not gonna turn us into one of his _truths_ , I will burn this world down before I let him do that.'

'Didn't we just talk about you blowing shit up?' Divad thinks.

'Yeah, yeah,' Dvd thinks, and David can't see them from this angle, but he knows Dvd just rolled his eyes.

"Boy, this relay thing is a lot easier now that you can hear everything," Kerry tells David. "It was really hard to not tell you their thoughts."

'C'mon, stop sulking so we can keep this thing moving,' Divad says.

'Ugh, _fine_ ,' Dvd grumbles, and then they both walk back over. They sit down, glance at David, but say nothing.

Okay, then. David supposes it's only fair. They've certainly tried to give him space to work out his thoughts and feelings even though they heard everything. As long as there's nothing he needs to respond to— He should do the same.

"David," Ptonomy says, drawing his attention. "That memory we just made? It's just as real as any memory."

"I don't understand," David says, frowning. "I mean, some of it was real, but—"

"Oh, I know this one!" Kerry says. "All our long-term memories are stored in fragments. When we remember something, we combine all the fragments we need in our short term memory. So every time we remember something, we make the memory."

David tries to take that in. "But I remember things. I mean, not all of them are real, but—"

"All memories are constructed," Ptonomy says. "Unless you have a mutant power like I used to, each time you remember, that's an act of creation. Farouk destroyed the long-term memory of your parents' faces, so when you put the memory together, you couldn't fill in those blanks. But now you can. By remembering your parents now, using your new memory of the photos, you healed that memory of them. And that means you can heal all the memories you have of them."

David leans back, stunned. "It can't be that easy."

"We just did it," Ptonomy points out. "No white room, no amplification tank. Just a few sensory aids and some help from Amy. She fed me the details you needed because she was there. Your brothers were there, too. Let them help you fill in those blanks and see how far it takes you."

David takes the last cherry from his plate and puts it in his mouth. He remembers the kitchen. He remembers Amy beside him, the blue mixing bowl, Mom making crust, Dad drinking coffee— And he bites down.

He remembers them. _He remembers._

Like Oliver's poems. The connections are there. If he uses them— He can make the memories his own again. He can make them real again. He can _do_ that.

"You can have my cherries," Kerry says, pleased. "Can I have your grapes?"

David gives a faint nod.


	91. Day 11: Let's start with crisis management.

When they get back to the lab, David goes right to Amy and gives her the hug of her life. 

"Thank you," he says, holding her tight, feeling her hold him. He feels— So grateful to be alive, to have her back. Getting her back helped him choose to live, and now having that memory— Healing that memory—

"I love you," Amy says, and it feels simple and true. 

David keeps holding her. He still feels so many things when he thinks about Amy. Regret and shame, longing and love, and even some anger. But he feels a kind of peace, too, and that's new and precious to him. 

What happened happened. He doesn't want to hold on to that pain, to hurt himself with it, and he doesn't have to. Those raw emotions he felt before— He feels like— Those wounds are finally healing.

His memory, his system, his trauma— They're healing. They're actually—

"I love you," he says back. He loves Amy and Amy loves him. That makes all the rest fade away.

He finally lets her go, and she smiles up at him.

"So, um," David says, self-consciousness returning to him. He glances around the lab and sees Lenny cleaning herself with a lint roller. "What've you guys been doing all morning?"

Lenny stops rolling, then starts again. "Stuff," she says.

"Uh, okay," David says, sensing her reluctance. 

"David, it's time for you to step out," Ptonomy says. "It's Divad's turn with your system's body."

"Oh!" David glances at the clock. "Right. Um."

"It's okay," Ptonomy says. "Take a moment. Do a check-in. How are you feeling?"

David focuses on his body. His stomach, his posture, his heart, his breathing. "Good. Calm."

"Excellent," Ptonomy says. "Is there anything you want to do before you step out?"

David thinks. He ate, he hugged Kerry and Amy, they even took a stroll around the halls after their snack. With the relay on, he can still talk directly to everyone but Syd. And if it's Divad's turn next, that means he'll have Dvd. He feels bad about what happened in the garden, even though he knows it's not his fault. He doesn't want to make Dvd feel rejected. Maybe they can spend some time together, just the two of them—

"I'm ready," he decides. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "Divad, Dvd, let's sit together."

They convene at the sitting area. David and his brothers take the sofa, and Oliver and Ptonomy take a loveseat. 

"David, please step out so Divad can step in," Ptonomy instructs.

David lets his body relax against the sofa, and then slips out of it. Once again, there's a moment when all three of them are outside of their body together. David wants to linger in that moment, to not be physically separated from both his brothers. But Divad goes into their body and the moment passes.

It's funny how, when he's outside of it, it's easy to think of his body as theirs. He sits down between his brothers.

'I really hate this crown,' Divad thinks, rubbing at his— Their head.

'Oh, now he hates the crown,' Dvd thinks. 

"It's time for the three of you to make your shared foundation," Ptonomy tells them. He gives Divad their system notebook. "David, Dvd, please open your mental notebooks."

"Oh, um." David feels like the student who missed the first day of class. 

"Here," Dvd says, handing him a notebook and a pen. "You can use Divad's. Unless you want your own?"

Divad's using his notebook, David can use Divad's. "This is fine," David says, and opens it. He looks at the pages, and Divad's neat handwriting on the list of ideas, the relationship guidance. He wishes he could rip out the page and add it to his collection, but it’s just a mental construct.

"Let's try this again. The three of you are going to talk about all the ideas you shared with each other, and you’re going to use those ideas to make your system’s foundation and any mantras or other tools you feel will help you heal. Is everyone ready for that?"

They all answer yes. 

"Very good," Ptonomy says. "Remember, you all have to agree on the ideas you choose, even if you aren’t able to believe them yet. You have to commit to them in your hearts for yourselves and each other. So let's get started. Review the list of ideas."

David looks down at the notebook. 

_We're all Davids._  
We're all people.  
We're brothers.  
We're all going to get better.  
We have to stay alive for each other.  
Our mind is our own.  
We belong to ourselves.  
We've lost things we'll never get back. But we're here and we're not alone.  
We share everything.  
We have healthy multiplicity.  
We forgive each other.  
We accept each other.  
We make decisions together.  
We try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do.  
We don't stay angry on purpose.  
We love each other. 

"These are all good ideas," Ptonomy continues. "But there's a lot of meaning behind them, and that meaning is going to be different for each of you. And that's okay, that's normal. What's important is that the ideas you choose have enough common ground, and also that there aren't any major conflicts. Now, there seems to be four types of ideas here. Some are about identity: who you are as individuals and as a system. There's relationship ideas: how the three of you treat each other and work together. There's how you handle conflict or stressful situations. And finally there are ideas about your system recovery, about healing from the trauma you endured. Does all that make sense?"

They all agree.

"Very good," Ptonomy says. "To make things easier, we're going to take each category one by one and discuss the ideas in them. If you want to change the ideas or add to them, just say so. This will be your shared foundation. Be honest with each other and with yourselves."

Ptonomy pauses, letting that sink in.

"Let's start with crisis management," Ptonomy says. "Your system had a crisis earlier this morning. Dvd, please tell me what happened."

Dvd frowns, unhappy, but makes the effort. "I talked to Syd and she pissed me off. I just— Wanted to get away from her, from all of this."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "And how did you handle that?"

"I tried to take David and leave," Dvd mumbles. "I just wanted to keep you safe," he tells David, visibly willing him to understand. 

"That's what you've done in the past," Ptonomy says. "When David was in danger, when your system's body was in danger, you did whatever it took to remove him or your body from that danger."

"Yeah," Dvd says, rallying. "That's my job. I keep us safe."

"David, how do you feel about that?" Ptonomy asks. "Do you feel safe?"

David realizes he's wrapped his arms around himself, protective. "Um, no," he admits. 

"What?" Dvd says, upset.

"I'm sorry," David tells him. "But being taken over— I know you just want to protect me, but—" From the moment Dvd first told him he does that— It doesn't make David feel safe, it makes him terrified. And that it might happen when he's already in a stressful situation— 

"The whole point is to get you out of a stressful situation," Dvd says. "People were hurting you, hurting us, I can't let that happen!"

So that's the choice David has, between being hurt by Dvd or someone else?

Ptonomy holds up a hand. "Okay, that’s enough," he says. "There are three ideas about handling a crisis in this list. 'We have to stay alive for each other', 'we make decisions together', and 'we try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do'. Dvd, what do you think about those ideas?"

"I guess they're okay," Dvd says. 

"Just okay?" Ptonomy says. "C'mon, really think about them. David put that first idea in. Is it important to you that David stays alive for you and Divad?"

Dvd and Divad both blanch. They look at each other, then look at David. "Yes," they both say, emphatically.

They didn't think anything. Were they remembering? What were they—

"You hanged us," Divad says, tightly.

He—

Oh god. "I— I didn't know you were there," David says, horrified. Oh god, _he hanged them_.

'And then he tried to kill us _because_ he knew we were there,' Dvd thinks, deeply upset, and that just makes it even worse.

It was supposed to be suicide, but it was _murder_. God, he's a _monster_.

"David," Ptonomy says, firmly. "You're not a monster. You were in incredible pain and you were desperate for a way out. Just like Dvd was in pain and desperate for a way out. And Divad's made the same kind of mistake."

 _He hanged them._ They were inside him and he— God, he hanged their body, _their body_. How can they even stand him? How can they want to be with him at all? What he did to Syd was bad enough, but what he did to _them_ —

"David," Ptonomy says, urgently.

'He's ruining this,' Divad thinks. 'I knew he couldn't—'

And then he— God, he _begged Clark to kill him._ And they heard everything. They heard every awful thought and they couldn't not hear it, no wonder Dvd was so furious with him, no wonder they— They tried to escape him, he was hurting them so much. God, he must have hurt everyone so much, and Amy, and Syd, and—

'I don't have to hurt him and I never did,' Divad thinks, chanting. 'I don't have to hurt him and I never did.'

"David," Dvd says, grabbing David by the arms and shaking him. "You gotta stop!"

David stares at him, breathing hard. 

"You were sick, okay?" Dvd tells him, still holding his arms. "You were really sick. You didn't know about us, and then when you did— You couldn't accept us. And it was awful, okay? It was beyond awful, but can you please not break yourself all over again?"

David looks into Dvd's desperate eyes.

' _Please_ ,' Dvd thinks, and it feels like he's thinking it with every fiber of his being.

"Um," David says. "I think, um— I need a break."

"David, good job acknowledging your limits," Ptonomy says. "Divad, Dvd, can you give us a few minutes? I'd like to speak to David alone."

His brothers get up and leave, Dvd with obvious reluctance.

"That was pretty rough," Ptonomy says. "How are you feeling?"

"Awful," David admits. He feels so ashamed of— Everything. And the shame makes him want to hurt himself so much, but hurting himself is why he's ashamed, and— 

"That's the lesson, remember?" Ptonomy says. "That's the trap Farouk built for you. He wants you to hurt yourself. Don't hurt yourself for him."

How can he do anything else? What he did to them— 

"You weren't trying to hurt them," Ptonomy says. "You were trying to make the pain stop. You were in unspeakable pain, David. When you hanged yourself, when you said that to Clark, you were in unspeakable pain. You were suicidal. Even with DID, that isn't murder. You didn't attack Dvd and Divad, you didn't mean to hurt them. You didn't know about them, and then when you did, they weren't real to you. You're upset now because they're real to you now. That's a good thing, just like it's a good thing that you got upset about sharing your body with them."

It's a good thing?

"It is," Ptonomy says. "I know it doesn't feel good, but it's extremely good that you're starting to process these things. It means you're not in denial anymore. You're starting to truly accept that you're part of a system."

Processing. He's processing? 

"You're accepting the truth and you're processing what that means," Ptonomy agrees. "You're recognizing that your life has always been shared, and that's a lot to take in. You thought you were alone, but Dvd and Divad were with you every step of the way. That was very hard for them. But they understand. You were forced to forget them. That wasn't your choice and it wasn't your fault. And now that you know, now that you're back together again, you can choose not to hurt your system. You don't want to hurt your system, right?"

"No," David says, mustering his voice again. 

"You don't want to hurt your brothers and you don't want to hurt yourself," Ptonomy soothes. "They don't want to hurt your system either. So if you all help each other, if if you all work together, the pain will stop."

The pain will stop. David holds on to that. If they all work together, the pain will stop.

"Maybe— We should add that to the list," David says, strained.

"How about you tell that to your brothers?" Ptonomy asks.

David nods, then remembers that Ptonomy can't see him. "Okay."

Ptonomy waves Divad and Dvd back over. They sit down and look at David.

"Um, sorry about that," David says. He got a little— Unsteady on his feet. Again.

"That was a hell of a wobble," Dvd says, but he's relieved. 

'Thank god for Ptonomy,' Divad thinks. 'I almost fucked this up.'

"But you didn't," Ptonomy says. "You had the feeling but you pushed back against it. Good job."

"The feeling?" David asks.

"David, just like you feel the need to hurt yourself when you feel ashamed, Divad feels the need to hurt you," Ptonomy says.

Divad stares at Ptonomy, betrayed. 'How could you just say that?'

"David already knows," Ptonomy says. "Just like he knows that Dvd feels the need to hurt you. All three of you feel the need to punish yourselves or each other or both. But it doesn't matter which of you is the target. It doesn't matter what reasons you have for your anger or your shame. All three of you have been trapped in this cycle of abuse and the only way to break it is to forgive yourselves and each other. You need to accept what's happened, process your feelings, and let go of your pain, just like David did with Amy."

David's startled to suddenly be a good example. But— Ptonomy's right. He and Amy went through all of that, and now— The peace he felt being with her, loving her— 

That's what forgiveness feels like. True forgiveness.

"Your whole system can know that feeling," Ptonomy tells them. "If you do the work, all three of you can feel that love for yourselves and each other. Just like all three of you felt love for Kerry and Cary together. Think how powerful that feeling would be."

David and his brothers look at each other. David tries to imagine— The forgiveness he felt for Amy, but felt— Three times over. For himself? For each other.

It's hard to imagine. It's hard to believe he deserves that. But his brothers deserve it. After everything he put them through—

"You deserve it, too," Dvd tells him. "Maybe— I can believe it for you?"

David gives Dvd a grateful look. And David keeps forgetting— He can touch Dvd. He reaches out and Dvd takes his hand. It's a lot easier to be outside his body when he's with Dvd.

'It's high school all over again,' Divad sighs.

'Back off,' Dvd thinks, glaring at Divad.

'High school?' David wonders.

"Let's get back on track," Ptonomy says. "'We have to stay alive for each other', 'we make decisions together', and 'we try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do'. How do the three of you feel about those ideas now?"

David thinks they're definitely very good ideas.

'Yeah, no shit,' Dvd thinks.

'We need them,' Divad thinks.

"And David, you wanted to add one more?" Ptonomy asks.

"Yeah," David says. "If we help each other and work together, the pain will stop."

"Divad, Dvd?" Ptonomy prompts.

"Add it," Divad says. 'We really need that one.'

"Yeah," Dvd agrees.

"OK, go ahead and write those down," Ptonomy tells them. They do. "Now we need to bring those ideas together. When a crisis happens, what do you want to focus on to get through it?"

'Hmm, I guess— Making decisions together is part of working together,' Divad thinks. 'We don't need both.'

"Okay, let's cross that one out," Ptonomy says. "Dvd, David? Any thoughts?"

David knows staying alive is important, but— The shame and despair— Survival doesn't help him escape that. Love does.

"The shit beetle doesn't want our body dead anyway," Dvd says. "He wants to fuck with our heads."

"So we need to stick together," David says. "We need— To remember that we love each other."

"We need to remember not to hurt our system," Divad says. "That's been helping me and we all need it. We don’t have to hurt each other and we never did."

Wasn’t Divad just thinking that? If it helped him— His words feel more powerful than just ‘trying.’

"Maybe we could use that last part," David says. He doesn’t have to hurt himself and he never did— When he’s feeling ashamed, that could help him. "Is that okay?"

‘He wants my advice,’ Divad thinks, and he looks pleased. ‘And it’s healthy advice—‘ "Yes," he says, firmly. 

David gives him a quick smile and then turns back to to his notebook. "If we add that and maybe— If we change 'help' to 'love'—" He tries writing it. _We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop._ Hmm. "But that leaves out the apologizing."

"There’s still ‘we forgive each other’" Divad points out. "Which category is that in?" he asks Ptonomy.

"That’s a relationship idea," Ptonomy says. "But there's nothing wrong with using it twice. Do you feel apologizing will help you manage a crisis?"

‘That’s more of an— After the crisis thing,’ David thinks. ‘When things are calmer.’

"Dvd?" Ptonomy prompts. "What do you think?"

"Apologies don’t mean shit," Dvd declares. ‘I don’t care if Divad apologizes, I care if he hurts David again.’

"Apologies are very important," Ptonomy counters. "But you’re right, in a crisis it’s our actions that matter most. If Divad’s words are more effective, your system should use them. So does everyone like what you have now?"

‘We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop.’ "Yeah, that feels right," Divad says.

"I like it," Dvd says.

"Excellent," Ptonomy says. "So the next time you get scared, or you feel ashamed or angry? These are the words you need to tell yourselves."

It's more of a mantra than a foundation, David thinks.

"That makes sense," Ptonomy says. "The identity and relationship ideas can go into your foundation. The crisis and recovery ideas can be your mantras. And remember, it's okay to keep changing these as long as all three of you agree on the changes together. How about you all give it a try?"

‘We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did,' David thinks, and hears his brothers thinking with him. 'If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop.'

"Wow," David breathes. That felt a lot more powerful than when he does his mantra alone. His brothers are affected, too. 

‘I can’t believe all of that yet,’ Divad thinks. ‘But I want to.’

"That’s all you have to do," Ptonomy tells him. "So now lets think about those crisis moments. Dvd, the next time you feel you have to protect David, what are you going to do?"

Dvd looks at David, uncertain. 

"You protected David just now," Ptonomy reminds him. "When he's hurting himself, you can't take him away from himself. So how do you do help him?"

"Uh, I— Talk to him?" Dvd tries. ‘I guess I do protect him that way.’

"You talk to him," Ptonomy agrees. "That’s what you need to do every time your system is in danger. Talk to each other and make a decision together. Let’s walk through what happened this morning again, but with your new mantra. Dvd, you sat down and spoke with Syd. But she said things that upset you. Go back to that moment. What do you do when you’re upset with Syd?"

‘Get the hell out,’ Dvd thinks, then tries again. ‘Work together, we have to work together, so— "I could— Tell David to leave?"

"That’s a good start," Ptonomy says. "You need to say how you feel, but then you need to let David say how he feels. David, how do you feel?"

"I don’t want to leave," David says. ‘And I don’t want to leave Syd. I want us to work things out.’

"She’ll hurt us again," Dvd says, annoyed. "We’re not supposed to hurt our system. Being with Syd will hurt us."

"I love her," David says. "Leaving her will hurt our system, too."

"It’ll hurt a lot less," Dvd insists. "We’re not supposed to love other people, it’s too dangerous."

"Love is dangerous," Ptonomy agrees. "The world is full of danger and risk. But we need the world. We need other people in our lives. David needs love to survive, we all do."

"We should be enough for him," Dvd tells Ptonomy. "He has us back and we should be enough."

They’re not, David thinks, even though he feels terrible for thinking it. "I’m sorry."

Dvd is angry and heartbroken. He lets go of David’s hand and crosses his arms. 

"Dvd," David pleads. "What we have— Being a system— This is all really new to me. I want us to be close, but— I can’t give up everyone else for us. I need them, too. You need them, Divad needs them. How would you feel if we had to tell Kerry that we could never see her again?"

‘Kerry,’ Dvd thinks, upset. "Kerry’s different."

"And is Cary different, too?" David asks. 

"Cary helped us sleep together," Dvd says. "So yeah, he’s different."

"And Ptonomy?" David asks. "He’s helped all of us so much, we wouldn’t be here without him."

Dvd huffs, annoyed. "Then Ptonomy’s different, too!"

David looks to Ptonomy, exasperated. ‘Help?’

"Dvd, what are we different from?" Ptonomy asks. 

"All of them," Dvd says, angrily. "Everyone, they’re all the same. They don’t care about us, they hate us, they’re afraid of what we are."

‘Oh, here we go,’ Divad thinks.

"What about Amy?" Ptonomy asks. "Is Amy different?"

‘We thought she was,’ Dvd thinks. ‘I don’t care if David forgave her, David forgives everyone for everything.’

"Kerry hurt you," Ptonomy points out. "She punched you and kicked you in the shins."

"Well, yeah, but— She was trying to protect David," Dvd says. 

"Cary made the crown," Ptonomy says. "He’s the one who realized David needed help. He also helped David accept his DID diagnosis. He and Kerry are helping him accept that he’s part of your system."

"So what?" Dvd says, defensive. 

"You’ve hurt David, too. And you’ve helped him. So has Divad. So have Syd and Amy. And so has David."

Now Dvd just looks confused. "No, that's—" He falters.

"The world has hurt you," Ptonomy says. "It's hurt your system, and you want to defend your system against that pain. But isolation isn't the answer. You have always been part of the world and all the good and bad things in it. If you focus only on the bad things, you’re the one hurting your system by keeping it away from the good things."

David recognizes some of that. Ptonomy said it to him when— When he felt like he could never be accepted, never be worth anything to anyone. And that’s— It’s just like how he and Divad both do the same thing from two directions.

Dvd rejects the world and— David feels the world should reject him. 

‘The world doesn’t want us,’ Dvd thinks. And it feels the same as what David has thought so many times: the world couldn’t want him. 

"We’re the same, too," David tells him. And he realizes: when he pulls away from everyone, when he tells himself that— That he’s shameful, that he’s garbage, that he should be thrown away— Isn’t that the same as Dvd saying that they should throw away the world?

"No, it’s—" Dvd falters. "It’s different, I could never think that about you!"

"But it’s the same," David tells him. "If I hurt myself or Divad hurts me, it’s the same. If I isolate myself out of— Disgust— And you isolate me—"

"It’s the same," Ptonomy agrees. "All of those are reactions to the same feelings of shame you all struggle against. The real threat, the real enemy of your system is the shame you feel. And the only cure for that shame is love. Love for each other and for yourselves. Love for other people and their love for you. It's healthy to recognize when you're in pain, but if you let that pain be your world, then you lose the love that can truly help you heal. That's true for David, and it's true for your whole system."

"But—" Dvd starts. "What are we supposed to do, just let them hurt us?"

"Take a look at your notebooks again," Ptonomy says. "Look at what you each wrote about love, about what to do when you don't feel loved."

They all look. In Divad's neat handwriting, David’s notebook says:

_Love means giving each other affection and support, and treating each other with trust, honesty, and respect._

_If someone says they love me but I don't feel loved, we should talk out small problems._  
If the problems are big, we should get help.  
If the other person won't stop hurting me, I should reject them. 

"The world is full of all kinds of people," Ptonomy continues. "There are people we can trust to love and protect us. People like Kerry and Cary, like Amy. Sometimes they make mistakes that hurt us, but when they hurt us, they suffer with us. At the other end, there are people who only care about themselves, who take pleasure in our pain. Farouk and Walter are like that. Most people are somewhere in between, and everyone makes mistakes, everyone struggles to make the right choices for themselves and the people they care about."

'David trusts the wrong people,' Divad thinks. 'He trusted Benny and Lenny. He trusted Farouk and he trusted Syd.'

"He did," Ptonomy agrees. "He needs you and Dvd to help him protect your system from the people who won't stop hurting you. But Lenny isn't Benny. Syd isn't Future Syd, and neither of them is Farouk. Lenny and Syd are both getting help, just like your system is. They're trying to get better because they love you and want to be with you without hurting you."

'Lenny's getting help?' David wonders, looking over to where she's sitting with Amy and Kerry. They're sitting at the table, but they're listening to the relay, to what Divad and Ptonomy say aloud.

"For her detachment syndrome," Ptonomy reminds him. "But also for what Farouk did to her."

Lenny looks back at them, then looks away. David wants to go to her, to talk to her and see if he can help her even a fraction of how she's helped him. 

"David also trusted the right people," Ptonomy tells Divad. "He trusted us to help him get better, to help his system heal. He trusts you and Dvd because he knows you love him and that love matters more than your mistakes. It's true that trust can be abused, but that doesn't make it wrong to trust. It's a balance, like everything else. We need to defend ourselves against people who hurt us, but stay open enough to give and accept love."

"How are we supposed to know who to trust if we can't read their minds?" Dvd protests.

"It's always a risk," Ptonomy admits. "Whether you can read minds or not. But love is a powerful force. If you let it in, it can help you heal. It can keep you alive and make life worth living. If someone makes you feel loved, if that love feels true, then they're worth the risk and the work. Think about the love your whole system feels for Kerry and Cary. Think about the love you feel for each other, old and new. That love is how you survived everything that happened to you. That love is how you're healing. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace that love and make it better, make it stronger with trust, honesty, and respect, with affection and support."

He pauses so they can take that in.

‘We have to forgive Amy and Syd,’ Divad thinks.

‘I don’t want to,’ Dvd thinks back, stubbornly. 

‘We need them,’ Divad thinks. ‘David needs them. And— I need Amy. I miss what we had.’

‘When you were getting as far away from us as you could,’ Dvd grumbles. 

‘You and David always had each other,’ Divad protests. ‘I needed someone, too. Amy was there for me, she loved me. I don’t care that she didn’t know who I was.’

"Then you’re ready to talk to Amy?" Ptonomy asks. 

"I am," Divad says. 'I really am.'

"I'm very glad to hear that," Ptonomy says. "And Amy is, too. So let's take a break. We still have a lot of work to do to build your foundation, but we've made real progress. I'd like you all to write down your new system mantra again, and think it together. These words are going to be your lifeline. Make them your own."

They each write and think the words. _We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop._

The words feel good. David pulls on the strength of them, ready to make it his own.

"Now think about a dangerous situation. Maybe someone is hurting you. Maybe your system is hurting itself. Maybe you're trying to talk to someone and they're upsetting you, or you're upsetting them. What do you do?"

"Love each other and work together," Divad says, firmly.

"Very good," Ptonomy says. "And what's the first step of working together, Dvd?"

"Uh, talking?" Dvd tries.

"Talking," Ptonomy agrees. "If you talk to each other, everyone can say what they need and what they think is the right solution. Then you can agree about what to do."

"That'll take forever," Dvd says, suspicious. "What if our life is in danger?"

"It'll get easier with practice," Ptonomy says. "But let's talk about what to do if you're physically threatened. If whoever is in charge of your system's body is conscious and able to move it, then you should ask them to move it away from the danger."

"What if they can't?" Dvd presses.

"We discussed this, Dvd," Ptonomy says. "Yes, in dire circumstances, it might be necessary for you to take control of your body to protect it. But that's a last resort, not an excuse. Forcing David to share your body hurts him, and I know you don't want to hurt him."

Dvd looks to David, longing and apologetic all at once. Then he turns back to Ptonomy. "I don't want to hurt him," he agrees.

"And if your system is in emotional danger?" Ptonomy asks. "If you're with someone who is saying things that upset you, or you upset them? David?"

"The love advice," David says. "We should follow that."

"And Dvd, what does that mean?" Ptonomy asks.

Dvd looks at David and Ptonomy, uncertain. 

"It means we should stay with them and talk to them," David tells Dvd. He had to learn that lesson himself, and he wants to share that with Dvd. He never had to isolate himself out of shame and Dvd doesn't either. "We should try to work things out. And we should get help if the problem is big."

"That's right," Ptonomy agrees. "The love advice applies to the three of you as a system, and also how your system relates to people outside of it. It will also help each of you relate to yourselves. Remember what Syd said to David? Give yourselves affection and support, and treat yourselves with trust, honesty, and respect. When you're unhappy, figure out why and get help if you need it. That's what's healing you. That's what will make you strong."

The same love for all of them. David likes that. Even if it's hard for him to give that love to himself, or for Divad to give that love to their system, or for Dvd to give that love to Syd and Amy— It's all the same.

"It is," Ptonomy agrees. "It isn't always easy to give that love, but it's worth it. And it will be easier if we do it together."


	92. Day 11: If *he* kills David, it isn't suicide.

"Hey," Amy says, looking at Divad sweet and hopeful, the way she used to when they were younger. He missed that hope after David destroyed it. 

On the other side of the table, David flinches, hurt by Divad’s thought. 

‘Watch it,’ Dvd thinks, warning. He’s sitting with David and holding his hand, steadying him physically the way Divad is steadying him neurochemically.

‘Sorry,’ Divad thinks back. It wasn’t his choice to have to share his thoughts this way. He’s been trying to keep his thoughts safe for David but it isn’t easy. And now, sitting with Amy—

He doesn’t want to hurt David, but he will. He'll remember things, think things and— Ptonomy better know what he’s doing because Divad doesn’t like this arrangement _at all_.

But Amy. He needs to focus on Amy. 

"It’s okay, Divad," Amy says. "I know this isn't easy for you."

It still startles Divad to hear her call him by his name. 

"Well, get used to it, Divad," Amy says, gently teasing. "I want to get to know all my brothers better. I want to talk to Divad and Dvd a lot."

'Liar,' Dvd grumbles.

"Dvd, please," David says, giving Dvd an earnest look. "She's our sister. I love her, we love her. Let Divad talk to her."

"Fine," Dvd sighs. 'For you,' he thinks, giving David a meaningful look back.

Divad does his best to tune them out. Amy knows he isn’t David and she still wants to be with him. He’s known that for days but it’s still hard to accept. He’s spent his whole life being David to her, to everyone outside his system, and now—

"Now you're just you," Amy says. "How does it feel to just be Divad?"

How does he feel? "Nervous?" he admits, even as he struggles to understand why. Their body is stiff with tension. "I mean, I've always been me on the inside." But he was always David on the outside. He answered to David, he wrote David's name— 

"It’s a big change, being yourself," Amy says. 

"Yeah," Divad says. He wants to be heard, to be seen, to have his existence— Made real and external. To not just be a stress response, but a whole person with his own voice and name. He got close to that in college and then Farouk destroyed that, like he destroys everything.

'Traitor,' Dvd thinks, a muttered thought that Divad ignores. 

He can feel their cortisol rising, chemical reactions of fight-or-flight gearing up, but— He can’t use his powers to make his feelings go away. He has to let them happen to him. But he feels so much. Farouk destroys whatever they build. He's going to destroy this, somehow, and that makes Divad so angry. If David had just _listened_ — _No._ No, blaming David is what the monster wants him to do. They have to unlearn his lessons to have a chance at making the torture stop.

"We will," Amy says, reassuring him. "We're making this time different, remember?"

Divad wants to believe that. He wants to believe that there's any way out of this. He wants to, but how? Every time they tried to stop the monster, to escape whatever horrors they were experiencing, it only made things worse. David made things worse. If David had just made the right choice even once, if David wasn't so stupid and useless all the time—

"Divad," Amy says, gentle but concerned. "I know you're scared. What you've been through, the fear that it will happen again— Anyone would be terrified. But hurting David won't make the pain stop. Farouk loves David's suffering, he wants it so much. Please don't hurt him for Farouk. We've all made that mistake and it's not the answer."

Divad looks away from her, ashamed. He knows she's right, but— When he tries to accept that— 

Then Dvd's right. He is a traitor, a monster. He tortured his system for Farouk. They'll never want him back, how could they? He's the one who ruined everything, who couldn't keep them safe, who—

"Divad," Amy says again, firmer this time. "Hurting yourself won't help either. All this shame— It hurts all of you so much. What happened wasn't your fault. Remember what Ptonomy said? If you love each other and work together, the pain will stop. You need to start trying to believe that."

Divad wants to. He wants to, but— He doesn't know how.

"Then let me help you," Amy says. "I love you, Divad. You're my brother. Remember how when there was a big storm at night, you'd come into my room? The lightning would flash, and then the thunder would be so loud— And you'd hold me so tight."

Divad remembers that. All three of them hated thunder, hated the terrifying noise that shook their bones. But they went to Amy and she held them, she kept them safe. Even though— It was just thunder, her holding them didn't do anything to stop the storm.

"But it made you feel safe," Amy says. 

'That was Amy, not Mom?' David wonders. 'I remember being scared of storms and going to her.'

It was Amy, Divad thinks. If David could share their body again, he could use that experience to heal the memory. But David let himself be tricked by the monster and now their system will never heal.

"There are always storms, Divad," Amy says. "But just because we can't stop them— Being together still helps us. Our hugs always made you feel a little better, right?"

It did. It always did, but— The monster tortured them anyway, ripped them apart. And all Divad could do was watch as David ruined everything, as he put their neck into that noose and— Sometimes Divad can still feel the cord strangling them, cutting off their air, making their vision fade out. David forgot them, he couldn't hear them, he didn't know they were there, but— Later, in Clockworks, imprisoned in their body, all Divad could think was that somehow David knew. He knew and he was punishing them, punishing _him_ for— 

"I didn't know," David insists, his eyes haunted. 

"He didn't know," Dvd says, defensive. 'We're finally getting him back, stop pushing him away!'

Divad isn't trying to hurt David, he doesn't want to, but thinking about what happened— If they don't want David to hear this, then they should let Divad put his mental shield back up, they should let him control his emotions, they should—

"No," David says, despite the tears in his eyes. "I don't care how awful it is. I need to know the truth. We can't fix our system, we can't love each other without being honest."

And if Divad's ‘honesty’ makes David want to kill himself again? That's what it did before. 

'You'd love that,' Dvd accuses. 'The shit beetle's gone, you'd shove David back and take over, and he'd let you do it because he thinks he deserves whatever you do to him.'

"That's not what I want," Divad insists. He doesn't want to hurt David, he just— "I want us to get out of this without that monster torturing us again and making us hurt people! I want us to not end the world!" David can't kill himself even though they all know that's the only way this is going to stop, Farouk took that away, too. He takes everything away no matter what they do. He's going to make them hurt everyone, Division 3 arrested them because they're going to destroy everything, because _David_ —

David can't kill himself. David's friends won't kill him, they're deluding themselves that there's any other way to make this stop. They don't understand. David will always fuck things up, that's what he does, that's what he _is_ , and Divad is the one who has to stop him from fucking things up but no one _listens_ —

He has to do this himself. He has to find a solution. And if David is the problem— If David can't kill himself—

And it comes to him, the solution. Because he's not David, he's Divad. He's his own person, he's— If _he_ kills David, it isn't suicide. 

'What,' David thinks, eyes wide.

"Over our dead body," Dvd growls, standing up.

"Listen," Divad says, because they have to listen. If Dvd just agrees to it— "It makes sense. What happened in college— I just didn't go far enough. David, I know you want this, we just needed a way to pull it off."

"Absolutely not," Dvd says, teeth bared. "It won't even work! Believe me, if any of us could kill each other, I would’ve killed you years ago, you _absolute shit beetle_."

"I'm not like that monster!" Divad says back, furious. "I'm trying to save everyone, to save whatever's left of us! David can't be saved, _we know that_ , David knows that, that's why he gave up his shielding for us, that's why we exist!" That's what they've always done wrong. That's why nothing ever worked. They shouldn't be trying to save David, he isn't the real David, he's just an identity like them. And if he's just an identity— He's not real, he doesn't matter. He knows that, they all know it. So to get rid of Farouk, to make all of this torture stop, all they have to do is— Erase him. Erase his memories, wipe him out so there's nothing left of David Haller at all. And then Farouk—

David stands up and takes two steps back. 'This can't be happening. Oh god, the crown won't stop him.' 

"I‘ll stop him," Dvd promises, and glares at Divad. "Yeah, I made a mistake years ago, I went along with your little plan. I had to because David was hurting himself, he was hurting all of us. But now you're the one hurting us! You wanna be a separate person so bad? You know what Ptonomy said about people who won't stop hurting us." He raises his hands menacingly. "I'm going to shove you so far back in our body—" 

"Dvd, wait!" David says, getting between them by standing in the table. "Divad, it won't work, your plan won't work because— Because Farouk doesn't think you're a separate person, right? So you killing me would still be suicide, and then— You and Dvd and— And Kerry and Amy and Cary— They'd all be tortured and you don't want that, right? You don't want them to suffer the way we have."

Divad hesitates, but then— "No, the monster only cares about you. We're not real. So if there's no David— He'll leave us alone. Our body will still be alive, right? It won't even hurt, I'll just—"

"Hey!" Lenny says, storming up to Divad. "Farouk doesn't care about David, asshole! He only cares about himself! He only went into David because he wanted revenge on his real dad. You think Farouk gives a shit what you think? You think 'real' matters to him? If you erase David, _that's still suicide_."

It's still—

Shit. _Shit _, he almost— If he'd—__

__"Oh, now he's sorry," Dvd sneers. "David, get out of the way."_ _

__"No," David says, raising his hands in pleading defense._ _

__"He tried to erase you!" Dvd says, outraged. "He crossed the line— Again!"_ _

__"I know," David says. "And I know it feels really different, but— Divad's doing the same thing I do. I try to kill myself, I've tried so hard—" His face creases with grief. "But Lenny's right, if he erases me, if I erase myself— It's the same. Farouk won't care what you are, if you're a stress response or a person— As long as you're part of me and you can suffer— That's real enough for him. It always was. He tortured all of us, he just— Tortured us differently."_ _

__"You don't remember," Divad says._ _

__"I don't," David agrees. "And that makes me feel like I've already been erased, like there's nothing left of me but him. But I don't want to be him anymore and I don't think you do either."_ _

__"He'll never leave us alone," Divad says, and that absolutely terrifies him._ _

__"That's why we have to stop him," David says, stepping closer. "We have to help each other so we can be strong enough to stop him. Please, Divad. We both have to stop hurting me for him."_ _

__Divad meets David's eyes, and he knows David is right. They are the same, dark mirrors of each other, victims of the same agonizing lessons. Divad doesn't feel like those lessons will ever end._ _

__"That's how I feel," David admits. "And I know you know that because you've heard everything I've ever thought." 'I don't want us to fight and punish each other. We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop.'_ _

__Divad doesn't understand how David can have compassion for him after he just tried to kill him._ _

__"You didn't stop loving me after all the times I tried to kill us," David says. "You suppressed your fear and anger so you could help me heal. I know exactly what it feels like to think killing me is the only way to make the pain stop. I felt it today, I've felt it— Every single day for so long, I can't even remember when it started. But that's what he did to us. That's the shame delusion, the parasite he left inside us that's been eating us alive."_ _

__It's still as vivid an image as it was when Divad first heard it._ _

__"The only thing that fights our shame is love," David says. "That's what helps me. If you let us love you, it will help you. I want us to love each other, I want— Even if there's pain coming from outside our system, I want our system to feel safe the way Amy feels safe. I know everything has been unbearably awful for all our lives, but this is our chance to actually make it stop and not just— Give in the way we always have."_ _

__'I sure didn't,' Dvd mutters._ _

__"You didn't give up on me, but you gave up on Divad," David says. "If you can love me even though I've hurt myself over and over—"_ _

__"It's _not_ the same," Dvd says, firmly._ _

__"None of us can leave," David says back. "We're not separate people, we're a system. We're all Davids. You hurting Divad and him hurting me and me hurting myself are all the same. We share everything, we have to share— Forgiveness and love."_ _

__Divad stares, honestly astonished. The David they knew was never capable of anything like this. He wanted to help, to protect them, to love them, of course he did. But he never— Every time he tried, things always went wrong._ _

__"There was a monster in our head," Dvd says, tersely. "I told you but you never listened, you were as bad as everyone else. David couldn't do anything right because the shit beetle never let him. David only fucked everything up because he was being fucked! When Cary got that halo on him, what's the first thing he did? He stopped a war. So if he can do that, maybe he can actually stop this one."_ _

__'I can't believe I just said that,' Dvd thinks, but keeps the same stubborn look on his face._ _

__'That's right, I did stop a war,' David thinks._ _

__He did. It all happened so fast, and then they were taken, but— As soon as David actually had a chance to be in control of their body and their powers, once he actually understood at least a fraction of what was happening— He stopped decades of bloody war. He made peace between Division 3 and mutantkind. A delicate, new peace, one that has a long way to go, but the killing stopped._ _

__David _did_ that, _their_ David. Divad was just as bad as David in not recognizing how huge that was, how important. For a few precious days, David could think clearly and the monster couldn't hurt him or sabotage him, and— That changed everything._ _

__If David could stop the war against mutantkind— David might actually be able to stop Farouk._ _

__Divad looks at David, really looks at him, and realizes— This isn't the David they lost. He is, but— He isn't. He's changed, he's grown. David can’t see how far he's come, and it’s hard for Divad, too. The shame blinds both of them so much._ _

__But Dvd sees it. Syd saw it, looking at David's notebook. Ptonomy must have seen it to make them share like this. And because Divad couldn't— He nearly destroyed everything they've been building._ _

__He almost did Farouk's job for him. Again._ _

__He sits back down, horror coming over him. Dvd's right, he's always been right. Divad is a shit beetle. David isn't Farouk's son. Divad is._ _

__"You're not a monster," David says. He walks out of the table and sits in the chair next to Divad. "You're a David, and— Davids make mistakes when we're afraid. Mostly we hurt our system because we don't want to hurt anyone else. But we don't have to hurt our system, we never did. We just have to love each other and work together."_ _

__"I'm supposed to be the one who gives you advice," Divad says, softly._ _

__"We don’t work that way anymore," David says. "I don’t think we ever did."_ _

__Maybe they didn’t. Divad did a terrible job protecting David’s mind, so bad that Dvd had to take over. And Dvd was supposed to protect their body, but he couldn’t stop the monster or the medication. And David— David was supposed to be the victim, the sacrifice to keep the rest of them safe. But that failed, too._ _

__"Our old system was a disaster," David says, with a sad smile. "That’s why we need a new one."_ _

__It’s hard to look at David and not see everything that happened, everything they were together, everything that went wrong. They lost David and what kept them going was the hope that one day they would get him back and finally find a way to keep him safe. But the David they found— He doesn’t need that. He needs them to help him be strong. Maybe he always did._ _

__If they’d only realized that, only worked the right way from the beginning—_ _

__"What happened happened," David tells him. "I know there’s so much I can’t remember, but I don’t want that pain to stop us from healing."_ _

__Divad recognizes what David is doing. "You can’t forgive me when you barely know what I did to you," he insists._ _

__"Would you have done it if you had the choice?" David asks. "If you don't want it, if it's not your choice, it's not who you are."_ _

__"It’s all I am," Divad counters. Earlier David thought there was nothing left of him but the torture. But that’s true of Divad, not him._ _

__"No," David insists. "If there was nothing left— If you were a monster, you would've just— Erased me and taken over as soon as Farouk was out of us. You have so much power over our body, but you're using it to help us heal. You don't want to hurt me. You're just scared and ashamed and— That means we're the same."_ _

__"I wanted to erase you," Divad admits, because David has to know, he needs the full truth so he can stop trying to forgive him. "When I stopped suppressing myself, all I wanted to do was get you out of the way so I could fix things myself. And that's nothing. In college— You were getting better and I didn't want that, so I tortured you, I broke you."_ _

__That makes David sit back. "Was that— What Dvd was talking about?" He glances at Dvd._ _

__"Yeah," Divad admits._ _

__"Okay, that's— That's really bad," David admits._ _

__"Yeah, no shit," Dvd says. "That's why we have to lock him away. Look what just happened! He'll keep hurting us until we stop him!"_ _

__"No, that's—" David starts, struggling. "I've tortured us, too. Dvd, you told me to kill myself because I was torturing both of you with my thoughts!"_ _

__"That's different," Dvd insists._ _

__"I _hanged us_ ," David tells him. "I tried to kill us over and over!"_ _

__"You were sick," Dvd says._ _

__"Divad's sick," David returns. "We're all sick, that's why we're here, that's— That's the whole point! We were tortured for decades by a monster, of course we're sick, how could we not be sick? Torturing me wasn't Divad's fault any more than— Than it was—" He trails off. 'My fault? No that's— That can't be right—'_ _

__"It's not right because it is his fault," Dvd says, pointing at Divad._ _

__"No," David says. "It's not right because— It's mine."_ _

__"How can him torturing you be your fault?" Dvd asks, baffled._ _

__"I don't know," David admits. "It just is."_ _

__"No, David," Divad says, frustrated. "It's my fault, if I'd just—"_ _

__"Oh my god," Lenny groans. "Listen, Larry, Curly, and Moe, it's the fucking monster's fault!"_ _

__They all stare at her._ _

__"Don't give me that dumb look," Lenny tells Divad. "I've had to listen to the three of you poking your system in the eye for _days_ and I am _done_. None of you did anything to deserve being bodysnatched as a baby and tortured for decades. Yeah, you're all fucked up from that, but it's not, like, _retroactive_. Him fucking you up didn't magically make you deserve to be tortured. He's an asshole, he tortured you for revenge against someone else. You beating up your system is just giving him what he wants. You don't want to be his puppets, so stop letting him yank you around!"_ _

__'But—' they all think._ _

__"No 'buts,'" Lenny tells them. "Listen, I sure as hell didn't do anything to deserve the bullshit I went through. But it happened and now I gotta deal with it. You three gotta deal with it too." Then she softens, looking at Divad. "Look, I get it. He made all of you hurt your system and it sucks. But guess what? Blaming any part of your system hurts your system! It's the hair of the dog, man. Maybe it feels good, but it's not gonna get you clean."_ _

__"What, are we addicted to punishment?" Dvd asks, skeptically._ _

__Lenny thinks about it. "Yeah, I guess you are. You want it so bad you'll hurt yourselves to get it."_ _

__Not again. "Will you stop calling me a junkie?" Divad pleads._ _

__"I will if you stop acting like one," Lenny says back. "The shit beetle made all of you just as obsessed with pain as he is. If you don't want to be him, stop acting like him. Whatever he'd do, just do the opposite. He's a petty, sadistic asshole who only cares about revenge, so— Be the opposite."_ _

__Divad looks at his brothers. They look back at him and each other._ _

__"Dammit," Dvd mutters. He rounds on Divad. "If I agree to this and you hurt David again—"_ _

__"You'll end me?" Divad asks, archly. "I could erase David and you could lock me away. But none of those things will save us and— David doesn't want that." He doesn't want them tearing their system apart, blaming and hurting each other for all the things that went wrong. He doesn't want to be sheltered. He wants the truth even if it hurts him. He wants— Healthy multiplicity._ _

__'Yes.' David smiles, relieved. It's a hell of a lot better than seeing him afraid, suffering, in pain—_ _

__The monster taught them they had to hurt their system, but that's his truth, not theirs. They don't have to hurt their system and they never did. If they love each other and work together, the pain will stop. It's hard for them to believe those things, but they have to try._ _

__Divad doesn't want to be like Farouk. He doesn't want to hurt David for him. So he has to be— The opposite. Forgiving, compassionate, helpful, actually loving and not whatever twisted love that monster thinks he wants. They all have to be that for their whole system, for each other and themselves._ _

__"That sounds like it should be in our foundation," David says, and gives Divad and Dvd a hopeful look._ _

__Divad looks at Amy. "We're supposed to talk so I can forgive you."_ _

__"We'll talk later," Amy says. "You’re my brothers, I’ll love you whether you forgive me or not. Hearing you helping each other— That’s what makes me happy, Divad."_ _

__Seeing Amy smile at him feels good, too. Divad's been so obsessed with finding the right solution, with being the one in control so he could fix things, but that made everything worse._ _

__"You're not doing this alone," David says. "I've been telling myself that and— You need to tell yourself that, too. I think you need all the things I've been telling myself. Maybe— You can share my notebook with me, the way I shared yours?"_ _

__"That was for our system," Divad points out._ _

__"What's the difference?" David asks. "You can have your own if it helps you, but— We're not separate people, we're a system. If you killing me is suicide, then you writing in my notebook— Is just us writing in our notebook. Right?" He looks to Divad, to Dvd._ _

__'I don't want to forgive him,' Dvd grumbles. 'I don't want to accept him back.'_ _

__"I do," David tells him. "And if one of us does something, we all do it, right?"_ _

__'How is this happening?' Dvd moans. 'I should never have told him how we worked.'_ _

__'Now who's the one pushing David away?' Divad thinks at Dvd._ _

__" _Fine_ ," Dvd says, while sounding incredibly aggravated about it. 'But I'm doing this for David.'_ _

__Of course he is. But Dvd can't have David all to himself anymore. They already have to share David with the world, and now— Dvd has to share David with Divad._ _

__'I guess Dvd was always really protective,' David thinks._ _

__More like jealous, if you ask Divad._ _

__"Hey, nobody asked you," Dvd says. 'You're the jealous one.'_ _

__They were supposed to share everything._ _

__'Hey, you made your choice, I made mine,' Dvd thinks back._ _

__'It's probably just my imagination,' David thinks, 'But it really sounds like— No, that's ridiculous, we're brothers.'_ _

__"We are _not_ brothers," Dvd tells him. "We're a system. The brother thing is just— To make it easier for you to accept us."_ _

__"I guess we are sort of brothers," Divad admits. "But, uh—" He really doesn't want to be the one to tell David this._ _

__"Tell me what?" David asks, looking at them. "What, did Dvd torture me, too?"_ _

__"Absolutely not!" Dvd declares, offended. "The opposite." He ducks his head, suddenly shy. The only thing that could ever make Dvd shy was David._ _

__'The opposite of torture?' David wonders. 'Healing? I thought Divad was the one who healed me.'_ _

__Lenny covers her face with her hand. "This is just painful."_ _

__"Could someone please just tell me what happened?" David asks, looking around at all of them._ _

__"Um, David," Amy starts._ _

__"Oh no, she is not telling you," Dvd says, intervening. He comes up to David. "I wanted you to remember on your own. But that asshole took everything, of course he did, he's even more jealous than Divad and _I hate him so much_."_ _

__"Just spit it out already," Divad mutters._ _

__"All right, all right," Dvd sighs. "Look, we shared everything, right? We were always together, your body is our body. And, uh, puberty happened. For us. Together."_ _

__'I'm still trying not to think about that,' David thinks._ _

__"Well you're gonna have to," Dvd admits. "It didn't start out as anything— We were just— It was one of the few things we had to help us feel better when everything else was awful. But we got older and— We were lonely and— We loved each other, we accepted each other when no one else did, not even Divad."_ _

__David stares at Dvd. "Are you saying—"_ _

__"We weren't, like, _boyfriends_ ," Dvd protests. "We were being tortured by a monster, we were just trying to survive— It wasn't like you and Syd with all the rainbows and fairy tales. But we— You needed me so much and I—" He looks at David meaningfully. "I loved you, David. I still do and— I miss you so much." 'Please don't hate me.'_ _

__David just stares at him, not even thinking. He looks at Divad. He looks at Syd. He looks at Dvd again._ _

__"But I'm not gay," David says._ _

__"Does it count as gay if it's yourself?" Divad asks. "But uh, we are, uh, not straight? Half the reason you trusted Benny was because—" Shit. He did not mean to let that slip._ _

__"I was in love with Benny?!" David cries, astonished._ _

__"Hey, I don’t remember doing _anything_ like that with David," Lenny protests. "I do _not_ swing that way."_ _

__"Lenny doesn't," Divad says. "But the real Benny did."_ _

__David looks to Amy. "Did you know about this?"_ _

__"I didn't," Amy admits. She's as surprised as David. At least they managed to not let the mainframe learn all of this first. "Philly and I didn't like you being with Benny, but that was because of the drugs. You two must have kept it a secret."_ _

__'I have to talk to Benny,' David thinks. 'The real Benny. I have to know the truth. Maybe Division 3 can find him.'_ _

__"Uh, slight problem," Lenny says, grimacing. "The real Benny's dead."_ _

__"Good," Dvd says, darkly pleased. "I hope he died alone and miserable."_ _

__"That's not nice," David says. "I loved him. Apparently."_ _

__"You were out of our head on drugs and in the middle of a self-destructive spiral," Divad points out. "We were just out of college. Benny was way older than us and he was our dealer. He used you and you didn't care as long as he made you feel good."_ _

__"This is a lot to take in," David says, struggling. 'All I remember is Lenny. Lenny's my age, not— What did Benny even look like?'_ _

__"There's a picture in the mainframe," Lenny says. "I can put it on a monitor, hold on."_ _

__She looks at one of Cary's monitors, and then— There's Benny. It's a mugshot, probably from when he was arrested for drugs or stealing. He looks rough, which makes him look older, but he must have been in his late thirties there. They were twenty four when Amy took them to Clockworks._ _

__"That's Benny?!" David cries, astonished. 'I don't remember him at all. Oh my god. I've been with men, I've been with— Myself?' And then he turns and looks at Syd._ _

__Syd looks— Outwardly calm. But Divad knows that doesn't mean anything. She's staring at the screen. When she realizes Divad is looking at her, she turns and stares at him._ _

__"Divad," Syd says, calmly. "Is David okay?"_ _

__"He's, uh, in shock," Divad admits. There was never going to be an easy way to tell David any of this. If he could just remember on his own— But the memories are gone, Divad knows that better than anyone. Whatever scraps are left in David's traumatic amnesia— That wouldn't be enough._ _

__Syd nods. "He was with Benny— While he was with Philly? And before he forgot you— He was with Dvd?"_ _

__"Yeah," Divad admits. And Divad could have shared with them, if he hadn’t—_ _

__"Okay, um," Syd starts. She stands up. "I need to, um."_ _

__"Syd," Amy says, reaching for her. "You shouldn’t be alone."_ _

__Syd looks like she needs to be alone. She looks like she’ll claw her way out of the lab if they try to make her stay. "I’ll find Ptonomy," she says, compromising. "So much for his break."_ _

__David snaps out of his shock and reaches for Syd. "Syd, I didn't know."_ _

__But she can't hear him. And before Divad can relay for David, Syd is gone._ _


	93. Day 11: Maybe Dvd's love is cherries after all.

No one sits alone. That's the rule. But David absolutely can't deal with staying with Amy or Lenny or Divad or Dvd right now, he just can't. So he goes up to the loft to stay with Kerry and Oliver. 

"Don't mind me," he tells them, not wanting to interrupt Oliver's physical therapy more than he already has. He sits down in a corner and rests his head on his knees, feeling utterly overwhelmed. Kerry and Oliver all heard everything, too. Everyone heard everything. Everyone except Syd, but she heard enough. They're all hearing him freaking out right now and there's nothing he can do about it.

And he can't not hear Dvd and Divad. He can't not hear how upset Dvd is, how heartbroken he is. But that makes him feel worse, because he's hurting Dvd, hurting his system, which is hurting himself? But he doesn't remember anything about Dvd or Benny or— He knew he didn't know who he was but _he does not know who he is_ and apparently _Farouk made him straight_ and David doesn't even know where to begin to process that revelation.

He can't get over seeing Benny. He's been trying to remember Benny for weeks and got absolutely nowhere. He just thought— He thought Benny was Lenny, just— Male. A male Lenny. But Benny was not a male Lenny. Benny was a whole entire other person who apparently David had some kind of secretly sexual relationship with for possibly _years_. Like the secretly sexual relationship he had for years with _himself_.

How did they even— If they shared all the time, how did they even—

 _Is that why Dvd was so upset about not sharing?_ What happened last night? Is sharing— _sexual_? 

'For god's sake— No, sharing is not sexual,' Divad thinks at him, pushing past David's frantic thoughts. 'It's just being together. Dvd wouldn't do anything to hurt you, don't even think he would, he's upset enough already.'

Well, David is upset, too! He's extremely upset! 

'Yeah, we get that,' Divad thinks, dryly. 'Just take it down a notch.'

Sorry, David thinks. He should probably avoid any spiralling. Spirals are not good for him. He should talk to someone, he knows that, but— He's had a lot of shocks since this started but this was a hell of a shock. Not the kind where he’s so terrified he goes away, not the kind that makes him feel like he has to hurt himself. He’s just— Upset and confused and— Angry. He’s angry that once again, people lied to him about himself, about who and what he is. He’s angry that they needed to lie to him. He’s angry that he didn’t know any of this in the first place, that all of this was stolen from him and now it’s just more empty space that nothing will ever fill. 

Amy knew about Dvd. Ptonomy and Lenny must have known, too, they must have overheard something Dvd or Divad thought. They all knew but they didn't tell him, they didn't— And that means Oliver knew, it means the entire world knew before he did.

"I didn't know," Kerry says. David looks up to see her addressing a spot a few feet away, where she last heard him speak.

"I'm over here," David tells her.

"Oh, sorry," Kerry says, and comes over. "I didn't know. They didn't tell me about Dvd either, or Benny, but nobody tells me anything. I guess they were waiting until you were ready."

David doesn't feel ready now. Every time he starts to get a handle on who he is, the rug gets pulled out from under him again. It’s exhausting and humiliating and—

Kerry sits down on the floor with him. "But you're still you, right?" she asks. "I mean, Oliver forgot everything too but he's still Oliver. That's what Cary says, anyway."

Cary. "Um, how's he doing?" David asks.

Kerry puts her hand over her belly. "Still asleep. We were apart for so long, I guess— We need to be together for a while so we can heal."

"Does it hurt, being apart?" David asks.

"Not at first," Kerry says. "But after a while— It starts to ache? In here." She puts her hand over her chest. "We don't know why. We never really talked about it. We don't actually know— What we are."

"Aren't you two a system?" David asks.

"I guess?" Kerry tries. "But we have two bodies and two minds, so— We're not really sure how we work? Cary and I talked about it a little. If we are a system, like you and Divad and Dvd— Then we have to have one soul."

"So— It's your soul that hurts?" David asks, curious. 

Kerry shrugs. "Maybe? We thought we'd ask Syd for help figuring it out, but— The ache went away once Cary went back inside, I don't think we should do anything until Cary can come out again."

Seeing Kerry struggling makes David feel a little better about his own confusion. "So if you're not a system, what are you?"

"Well, we're definitely mutants," Kerry says, with relieved confidence. "That part's easy. You're definitely a mutant, too."

"That's true," David agrees. At least that's one thing that hasn't changed in the past couple of weeks. Though honestly he's still adjusting to learning that after being brought to Summerland. Which was, what, six weeks ago for him? Everything's happened so fast. "And I'm a man, you're a woman. That's easy."

Kerry frowns.

"Is it— Not easy?" David asks, concerned.

"I dunno," Kerry says. "I mean— Before we changed, I wasn't really me, not like I am now. I was Cary. His body was my body."

"Oh," David says, surprised. "So— You felt like him? A man?"

"I didn't like to think about body stuff," Kerry says. "Any body stuff. It didn't feel right."

David blinks at her. "Does it— How does it feel now?" 

Kerry concentrates. "Different. Weird. But maybe— Less weird? I dunno, it's all pretty new."

David considers this. Is there anything he’s experienced that’s similar? And to his surprise, there absolutely is. "After I swapped with Syd, in Clockworks— I was only her for a couple hours, but after that— My body felt wrong for weeks. Like— Being in her shape— Made something in me her shape."

Kerry considers that. "If me and Cary swap with Syd, will that make us feel like her?"

"I don’t know," David admits. "We never tried it again. And I don’t know if it was me or—"

Kerry gets a wary look.

"You don’t have to swap with her if you don’t want to," David offers.

"But if we don’t, then how are we gonna figure out what we are?" Kerry asks. She gives a frustrated huff. "Understanding myself is a lot harder than I thought it’d be."

David smiles at that. "It really is."

"I don’t wanna be the wrong shape," Kerry says. "But I don’t even know if this is the right shape. I was him, but not— All of him. And now I’m all of me, but that’s weird, too."

"Maybe you just need time?" David offers. "I don’t feel like I need to be Syd’s shape anymore. Though, um— To tell you the truth— I kind of miss it? It felt—" How did it feel? He’s not sure he can put it into words. He’s not even sure if what he misses is being her shape or— The feeling that she’s with him, around him, close to him in a way they’ve never physically been.

"Huh," Kerry says. "So maybe— It’s not that I’m supposed to be Cary. It’s that I miss being inside him?"

"Maybe?" David shrugs. "You were Cary for a long time. Maybe it’s both things, but— Tangled up."

"So I have to untangle, like you do," Kerry says, and is pleased about it. 

"So let’s keep untangling," David says, buoyed by their progress. "How about— Attraction? Do you feel attraction to anyone?"

Kerry shrugs. "How would I know?"

"Well," David says, because that is a good question, one he should probably be asking himself. "Um, the magazines we looked at. When you looked at the photos, did you— Feel anything about the people in them?"

Kerry thinks. "I was more interested in the food. What about you?"

What about him? 

He can't trust his memory. Farouk could have made him remember anything, even after he rewrote him in college. He rewrote Benny and Lenny right to the very end. David knows Philly was real, but he can't trust his memory of their relationship. Who knows what the real truth was? Amy didn't know the truth about his relationship with Benny. He remembers loving Philly, he remembers desiring her, having sex with her. He can only hope all of that was real. He doesn't know if anything he remembers is real. So that leaves— The past month of his life to judge his sexuality by. 

Syd. He knows he loves Syd. Even though he feels a lot of things, a lot of not great things— He wants to be with her, he wants to kiss her, and— 

He blushes. He probably shouldn't think too much about that when everyone is listening.

"Is that how you know?" Kerry asks. "Kissing?"

"It's more of a feeling," David tries, not at all sure that he's the right person to explain this to Kerry. But here they are. "Like— How you have a favorite food. It feels good to think about, uh, cream soda, right?"

Kerry nods.

"So it's kinda like that," David continues. "Except it's a person and, uh— You don't want to eat them." Well, not literally. "You want to be— Intimate with them. Physically, emotionally— But it doesn't have to be sexual, I was with Syd for a year and— We couldn't even touch, but— Just being close to her— Sharing my life with her made me happy."

It did. He misses how she made him happy, how simple it felt to love her and be loved by her. But that simplicity was an illusion. They were— Loving past each other, never understanding each other, because of Farouk, because of their own fears and traumas. 

"Am I supposed to want to be with Cary?" Kerry asks. 

"No," David says, and then hesitates. "Probably not. Honestly, it's— I have no idea if identities normally— Fall in love." That's not the kind of thing he read about in Syd's book. "But there's usually a difference between— Romantic love and— The way you feel about your family and friends." And yourself. Because identities aren't separate people, they're a system of people that are all one person.

"I don't know if I'm a system," Kerry protests. "What if me and Cary are mutant twins? Maybe we're two separate people who got stuck together. Maybe we're something new, something only mutants have and no one understands, like— Like detachment syndrome."

"Okay," David says. "How do you feel about Cary?"

"I dunno, he's Cary," Kerry says. "I didn't have to think about him, he just _was_. And now it's complicated."

"But you love him, right?" David tries. "You feel safe with him, you trust him, it makes you— Happy to be with him, especially after you've been apart."

Kerry nods. 

"But you don't want— More than that," David asks. "You don't want to be— Well, you do want to be physically together, but— uh—" How is this happening to him? How is he giving Kerry the sex talk? When two people love each other very much— No, no, that's— 

"I don't want sex stuff," Kerry says, firmly. "It's gross and weird. Body stuff is bad enough. Cary doesn't want sex stuff either."

"He doesn't?" David asks, surprised.

"No, of course not," Kerry says, like it's obvious. "I don't know why anyone does. I don't know why you do. You're already confused all the time, it's just making you even more confused."

David can hardly argue with that. "Desire isn't logical," he argues anyway. "You just— Fall in love with someone and then— That's it." That's how it was for him with Syd. He thinks that's how it was with Philly, even though— He remembers spending more time fighting with her than anything else. They weren’t even together for a full year but they broke up and got back together so many times—

He likes women. He is definitely attracted to women. But men?

A month isn't much to go by, much less a month spent in constant, intense emotional distress and confusion. Thinking of men sexually certainly doesn't turn him off, it just never occurred to him, not since they got Farouk out, not with everything going on. And why would he want anyone else when he had Syd? But it's not like being with Philly or Syd made him unable to perceive other attractive women. 

He thinks about the magazines. There were plenty of attractive people in them, men and women, and he— Appreciated them aesthetically. But he didn't know them, they were just pictures, not people he could have an emotional attachment to.

He refuses to even consider the shit beetle. So who does that leave? Ptonomy? Clark? Cary and Oliver? And— Divad and Dvd.

Ptonomy and Clark— Again, David isn't blind. They're attractive men. But all he got from them was how much they despised and distrusted him. He can't think of anything less enticing than that. Kerry's right, David never got much of a sexual vibe from Cary. Oliver's attractive and he does feel sexually— Something, but he's swiss cheese. And Divad— David honestly has no idea how he feels about Divad at this point, it's just really complicated and he's trying to focus on helping them both heal.

Which leaves Dvd.

And there he has to pause. Because— In the garden, when he thought about Dvd's love for him, how it was— The lightbulb in his lamp— And how Dvd kept making him think of Syd, and Syd kept making him think of Dvd—

"Oh my god," he sighs, and covers his face. He does have feelings for Dvd. How did that even happen? 

"Maybe it's a memory thing?" Kerry offers. "Maybe it's like the cherries. Even though you forgot, some part of you still remembers how much you loved your mom. Maybe even though Farouk made you forget Dvd, he couldn't take everything away."

"Maybe?" David tries. "But I remembered something about the cherries. I can't remember Dvd at all." Or Benny.

"Maybe it's like an experiment," Kerry says. "If you run the same experiment twice, you should get the same results."

"This is pretty different from before," David counters.

"You're still the same people, though," Kerry says. "Maybe this is just, like, part of how you work. Y'know, as a system."

"Being in love with another part of myself is how I work?" David asks, skeptical.

"I dunno, it's your system," Kerry says. "But you guys went through some really awful stuff. And love is, like, super important to you. You need it a lot. But you were afraid to love anyone else, right? So— You tried to give yourself what you needed."

That— Actually makes sense. But where does that leave him? Is his relationship with Dvd healthy or unhealthy? It might be a new relationship for him, but it's definitely not new for Dvd. He— Never stopped loving David. Not after David tried to kill them. Not after ten years of separation, ten years of watching David love other people. That's—

That's more than just love. That's devotion, that's— That's probably what kept David alive through some of the worst parts of his life. When he'd lost everything, even himself, he still had Dvd. But it took so much love to survive. David lost the world to Divad, so Dvd— Became his world.

He can't remember feeling however he must have felt with Dvd. Maybe there's some remnant of that love inside him, like the cherries, like Oliver's poems. But this time is different. He does have the world, he has friends, he has— He hopes he can be with Syd again. But he ended up with feelings for Dvd anyway. Because he's a man? Because they're a system? Because of Dvd's devotion?

"That's a lot of questions," Kerry says.

"It is," David agrees. And he has no idea how to answer them. But maybe— If Dvd feels like Syd— Maybe he can do the same thing with Dvd that he did with Syd. Accept the feelings exist, acknowledge them, but— Acknowledging them doesn't mean they have to act on those feelings. He still doesn't know if being with Syd is right for him. He doesn't want them to hurt each other again, but they miss each other and they're both trying to get better. Maybe that's the same, too.

" _Yes_ ," comes a triumphant whisper.

David turns and sees Dvd's head just peeking up from the stairs. As soon as their eyes meet, Dvd ducks back down.

‘Shit,’ Dvd thinks, quietly.

David narrows his eyes. No wonder Dvd got so quiet. He was _spying_.

"What do you need to spy on me for?" David asks him. "You can hear everything anyway."

'You were too far away,' Dvd thinks. 'I don't like it when I can't see you.' He raises his head again and gives David a hopeful look. God, he's like a lovesick puppy. 

David wonders if that's what he looks like when he looks at Syd. It probably is. Or it used to be.

"Just come here already," David tells him. 

Dvd smiles and clambers up the last steps. He trots over and sits himself down next to David, and is extremely happy about it. He gives David an expectant look.

"Um," David says. Dvd already heard everything. What should he say?

"I waited ten years to get you back," Dvd points out, sobering. "I deserve at least the same thing Syd got, _at least_."

Okay, that's fair. "Dvd," David starts, still feeling very strange and surreal about all of this. "I have feelings for you, too, but I'm not ready to be with you in— That way. And maybe I will, but for now, can we just—"

"Yes, absolutely," Dvd promises. "I mean, we still have a lot of work to do for our system, for your memories— But David, I love you so much and you matter to me more than anything and—" He starts to tear up. "I'm just, um— I'm just really—" 'He really loves me again? I thought— I was so afraid we'd never— I can't believe this is happening.' He wipes at his eyes. 'I'm not even in our body and I'm crying.'

David can't help it. He can't see Dvd crying and not offer a hug. So he opens his arms and Dvd falls into them and—

They hold each other, Dvd clinging to him and— David feels some tightness in his heart ease. Accepting Dvd's love, returning it in the small way he's able to— It does make him feel better. It feels like— Something that was missing, that was taken away from him— And they’re taking it back. 

Maybe Dvd's love is cherries after all.


	94. Day 11: Arguing about definitions at this point is counterproductive.

Syd's out of the lab before she realizes she has no idea where Ptonomy is taking his break. She could turn around and go back, ask Amy or Lenny and find out exactly where he is. But she doesn't. She goes to the elevator and takes it to the top.

Ptonomy's not in the garden, and all that is is a relief. She doesn't want to talk to anyone, she doesn't want to be with anyone, she just-—

She wants to do what she's always done. She wants to hide and be alone and drink until her feelings stop. But if she does that—

She goes back down the stairs, back to the elevator. She walks the halls, forcing herself forward step after step, until she hears Ptonomy's voice. She walks towards it, towards a conference room. The door is open, and she stands back and looks inside.

Ptonomy's with several people, an older man and two women about Ptonomy's age. Ptonomy walks up to the man and the man gives him a rough, strong hug. 

A touch to her shoulder makes her jump. She whirls around to find Clark standing with a finger over his lips. He steps away and gestures for her to follow him.

"What's going on?" Syd asks, when they're a safe distance away. 

"Ptonomy's getting his treatment," Clark says. He looks reluctant to explain, but then he does anyway. "He's in a tough spot. Being everyone's therapist means he can't get all the warm snuggles everyone else gets. So we brought in his family."

Ptonomy has family? Syd doesn't know why that surprises her so much. She knew about his mom dying, she knew his dad was in the army when he was a kid, but beyond that— "He never talked about them."

"They're estranged," Clark says. "Or they were. Him dying and coming back to life changed their minds. We didn't want to bring them into this, but—" He shrugs. "That's his dad, his sister, and an ex-girlfriend. We think that should be enough."

Another ex? Syd can't seem to get away from them. At least they haven't dragged in Philly. Yet. "Why the ex?" she asks. Surely family should be enough, if all Ptonomy needs is some hugs.

"The split was amicable," Clark says. "They still love each other, but he didn't want to put her life in danger. Now the whole world's in danger."

It is. No matter how intimate David's therapy feels, no matter how sensitive the topic, Syd knows there's good reason why the surveillance cameras were never turned off. Thanks to Farouk and David's powers, David's business is everyone's business. And with Ptonomy in charge of David's therapy—

"Why not get Ptonomy a living body?" Syd asks. Surely Division 3, with all its resources and technology, has figured out how to solve that problem.

"The moment Ptonomy leaves the mainframe, so do his secrets," Clark reminds her. "So his treatment gets priority. You've got two options. You can go back to the lab and talk, or you can talk to me. Honestly I'd prefer the first, but I can understand why it would be hard for you to talk about your jealousy in front of David's sister and two of his exes."

"Lenny's not an ex," Syd says. 

"David had sexual relationships with one of his identities and also his currently-lesbian best friend when she was a man," Clark says. "Arguing about definitions at this point is counterproductive."

Syd crosses her arms, annoyed not so much at Clark as at how complicated her life has become. Things were so much simpler in Clockworks. But of course, now she knows that wasn't true at all, not for reds like David and Lenny.

"Clockworks," she says. "Division 3 needs to shut it down."

"It's being handled," Clark says. "If we close it, a lot of those patients will end up somewhere just as bad or on the street. Oversight's a better option, but we're an international military organization, that's not in our remit. So we made some calls. There'll be an investigation, we'll keep an eye on that."

"Oh," Syd says, surprised. She forgets how much compassion Clark can have when he's dealing with humans and not mutants. She wonders if they'll ever stop being the enemy to him. "Thank you."

Clark nods, but gives her a look that says he's not interested in her stalling tactics. 

"Fine, I'm jealous," she admits. She was jealous of Philly last year, she's always been jealous of Lenny just for being David's best friend, and now apparently she's jealous of David for loving himself.

"Good, we can skip the denial," Clark says, dryly. "That's always tedious."

Syd gives him a look for that. It has exactly the same effect as telling off Matilda for clawing up the furniture, which means it has absolutely no effect.

"Look," Syd says, attempting to muster some kind of defense. "I'm not angry at him."

"But you are angry," Clark says.

"Yeah," Syd admits. "I am." He lied to her, she wants to say, even though she knows he didn't lie to her. He found all this out at the same time she did. He's probably even more angry about it than she is. He's the one who had his memories changed, his entire _sexuality_ changed. 

If it wasn't for Philly—

"Do you think, if Farouk hadn’t—" she starts, then stops. Farouk was in control of David his whole life, who know what he would have been without him? Farouk could change memories, but could he change that? Could he—

"I think if Farouk could stop David from loving anyone other than him, he would," Clark says, certain. "I don't think he cares what gender of person David loves. He's just as jealous of you as he is of Dvd, apparently."

"I hate that you know that," Syd admits.

"I hate it, too," Clark says. 

She tried to tell herself she didn't want the relay, that she didn't need it, but she needs the relay so badly. It's killing her that everyone else can hear everything in David's head and she can't. Dvd and David could be getting back together right now and she wouldn't know, she couldn’t see it or hear it but it'd still be happening. David could cheat on her right under her nose and she'd never know, just like Philly didn't know about Benny.

Not that she and David are back together. They're not back together. All they did was— Acknowledge their feelings for each other. That's it. They don't have a relationship, they're just— Therapy buddies, and barely even that. She could have stayed and helped David deal with all of this but instead she ran away. She's just as bad as Dvd. If she could grab David and take him away from this place, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

God, David really does have a type, doesn't he? But she'd rather be a re-enactment of David's identity ex-boyfriend than Farouk. 

"So is this it?" Clark asks. "Your dealbreaker?"

"I didn't say that," Syd says.

Clark gives her a look. Syd wishes she could ignore it.

"He cheated on Philly," Syd says. "Just like he cheated on me. That's a pattern."

"You do know I watch your sessions, right?" Clark says. "I can pull up the video if you want. It's in your file."

Syd glares at him. God, she hates this place. "Fine. Future Syd is me. David slept with her because I told him to. But Philly didn't tell him to sleep with Benny."

"We don't know what happened," Clark says. "But he was with Benny first. If he did cheat on anyone, he cheated on Benny with Philly."

"That doesn't make any sense," Syd says. She saw David's memories of Philly and Lenny, or at least bits of them. She talked to Philly herself, and Ptonomy looked into Philly's memories. Benny had to know David was with Philly. 

Clark's right, they have no idea what really happened between David and Benny. Or at least David and Lenny don't know. Even Philly doesn't know. But Divad and Dvd know. 

And that brings her right back to Dvd. Who is part of David. So is it cheating if David has sex with himself? Is that even sex?

"I can't deal with this," Syd mutters, and rubs her head. 

"Look, you want David all to yourself," Clark says, unmoved. "I get it. I'm a one-man kinda guy and so’s my husband. But you're right, there is a pattern. I don't think it's about betrayal. I just think— David needs more love than one person can give him without things getting— Toxic."

"So, what, he needs polyamory to be stable?" Syd asks, disbelieving.

"He's three people," Clark says. "You said it yourself, the way they work, any relationship with David means having relationships with Dvd and Divad. So that's already polyamory. You were fine with it before. Why's it a problem now?"

He's right. Why is it different now?

"I want— All of David to love me," Syd admits. "I don't care how many different parts of him there are as long as they all love me."

"And Dvd loving David doesn't fit into that," Clark says. "Except David needs to love himself. That's what all this is about. Unless you want David to love you more than he loves himself?"

She does. She absolutely does, but that's exactly the kind of thing that made their relationship toxic. And she saw that it was toxic, she tried to make him less dependent on her. But she did that by telling him to love them both less, to love himself the way she loves herself, which is— She barely loves herself at all. 

It's like— A twisted kind of compassion therapy. She wants David to love her so much she doesn't have to love herself. And Dvd threatens that. Lenny and Philly both threaten that. Even her own future self threatened that. If David loves them, what's left for her? 

It's a terrible thing to think, she knows that. Just like it was terrible to shame David for leaving her even though she knew he was taken. 

"Are you going to answer that or do I need to talk to Oliver?" Clark asks.

"Why does everyone keep threatening me with Oliver?" Syd grumbles.

"Do you think David would be where he is now without the relay?" Clark asks. "You take one step forward and then you run the other way until you hit a wall. And honestly, we don't have time for that. Let us help you." 

"It's 'us' now?" Syd asks, archly.

Clark looks to the heavens. He sighs and looks her in the eye. "Yes. It's us. That doesn't make me your friend and it sure as hell doesn't make me David's friend. But we're in this boat together. I want you to stop drilling holes."

"And the relay will help me do that?" Syd asks, half in challenge, half in hope.

"It's the best shot we have," Clark admits. "If you need motivation, think how much it will mean to David. You open up to him, maybe he'll open up to you. Right?"

"You want me to share my thoughts with him, too?" Syd asks, eyebrows raised.

"That's nothing new," Clark points out. "He'll hear everything again once the crown's off. With this you'll have to talk to each other about what he's hearing. You want his thoughts? Earn them."

Syd considers all that. Clark's right, of course. David only got this far because he's had a lot of help. He didn't have a choice about that help but it was what he needed. She helped force him into therapy in the first place. By refusing to accept the relay herself— What message is she sending David? They're all supposed to be modelling healthy behavior for him, she knows that, even though she's been so busy having her private pity party that she didn't step up to do her part.

She hates that Lenny's right about her. Again. She has been acting like she's too good for all of this, like she's just a visitor, just like she did in Clockworks. 

Divad and Dvd didn't have a choice about the relay any more than David did, but they did choose to let David hear their thoughts, to make their relationship with him an equal one. That meant a lot to David, she saw that. It's already brought secrets out into the open and they’ve been a lot to deal with. But if David can handle Divad and Dvd's thoughts—

"Can I ask how David is?" she asks, hating how vulnerable she sounds.

Clark pauses. "Actually, he's doing fine. Had a chat with Kerry about their identity crises. He gave Dvd the same speech he gave you. You know, let's acknowledge our feelings, blah blah blah. They just hugged, it was cute."

Syd takes that in. "Should you have told me all that?"

"These aren’t secrets," Clark says. "If you want to know what you're missing, all you have to do is ask. We're teaching David consent so he doesn't rape everyone's minds once he gets his powers back. Consent's been a problem for both of you, maybe you should model it for him."

It's been a while since Syd got an emotional gut punch. That one hurt.

"Hey, what was it Lenny said?" Clark asks himself. "If you don't want to be like Farouk, stop acting like him. That's some solid advice from a dead junkie."

Syd glares at him. "You do realize that if I do this, you're going to hear all my thoughts, too?"

"And I'm truly thrilled," Clark drawls. "I'm sure they'll be as endlessly delightful as the Davids' thoughts. Just as a heads up, are there any major physical or psychological traumas we should know about? Because most of the world’s civilian and military leaders have been lightly scarred from listening to all this and they'd appreciate the warning. Who knew so many of the people in charge had abusive childhoods? Really makes you think."

"I'm sure everything's already in my file," Syd says, and suppresses a shudder.

§

When Syd gets back to the lab, everything's calm. David— No, still Divad. Divad is sitting with Amy and Lenny on the sofa. Divad is holding Amy's hand and talking to her while — to Syd's surprise — Lenny holds Amy from behind. And up in the loft, Kerry is laughing at something. Clark said David and Dvd were with her, so one of them must have said something funny. Oliver's up in the loft, too, doing his physical therapy.

Every time she leaves, she misses something. How much is she missing by not having the relay? It must be so much, and she stupidly turned down David’s offer in the garden. But he wasn’t ready, they both knew it, and if she hadn’t refused him, Divad and Dvd would have intervened. All the Davids need to agree to share with her. And that means Clark is right: the fastest way to earn their trust is by sharing her thoughts with them again. 

They already heard her thoughts. They know what she’s capable of, they know how cruel her thoughts can be. That’s part of why they don’t trust her now, but if she can make her thoughts healthier, if the relay can help make that happen—

She needed motivation. Now she has it, and a clear goal and a path to reach it. She just has to take the first step.

She walks to the sitting area and takes the loveseat closest to Divad. His expression had been open with Amy, sad and vulnerable but hopeful, too, and now it closes off. 

"Back already?" Divad asks, coldly. It stings, but Syd took off yesterday and didn’t come back for hours. She earned this.

"I shouldn’t have left like that," Syd admits. "I’m sorry, it was— Thoughtless."

"You’re lucky David had a lot on his mind," Divad says. "He was too busy being upset about everything else to be upset about you."

That cuts right to Syd’s core. Divad managed to make her feel so unimportant, with so little effort. David would never say anything like that to her. And she thinks she can get this part of David to love her? To even tolerate her?

It’s probably impossible, but she still has to try.

"I was thinking about what you and Dvd did today, choosing to share your thoughts with David," she starts. "It was very hard for you, but you did it because— Even though it’s scary, your relationship with David matters more to you than your shame."

Divad stares at her, taken aback. "Uh, yeah," he says. "I mean, it wasn’t really my choice, but—"

"It was," Syd insists. "You knew David deserved your respect. I want to give your system the same respect. So I've decided to allow Oliver to relay my thoughts to the mainframe."

Amy and Lenny feign surprise, but Syd knows they were keeping an eye on her when she left the lab. Divad looks past her to the stairs, and then Amy and Lenny look, too. David and Dvd must be coming over.

"I know my thoughts have been hurtful to you," Syd continues. "But I want that to change. If I can be helped the way your system has been— Maybe the three of you will allow me to share my thoughts with you."

Divad is not impressed. "You expect that to make us trust you?"

"I don't expect anything," Syd says, and it's not entirely a lie. 

There’s a pause as everyone listens to something she can’t hear. 

Divad turns back to Syd. "David says—" He pauses again. "David wants to know if you’re sure."

David’s worried for her? That gives her the strength to keep going. "My thoughts are dangerous," she admits. "Just like yours. I don’t want you to get the crown off and then— For my thoughts to put that stability in danger."

"David says you never even wanted to talk about your thoughts before," Divad relays.

"And that was wrong of me," Syd admits. "You heard everything I thought and ignoring that— All that did was hurt us. I pushed you away, I ignored my own problems, it was— It was abusive to both of us."

There's another long pause, and from the way everyone looks back and forth, Dvd and Divad are both talking.

"Dvd wants to know why you left," Divad relays. "He wants to know what you were thinking when you found out about him and David and Benny. And, uh, David wants to know, too. And frankly so do I." He gives her a challenging look.

Syd reminds herself that David needs to be able to stand up to her, to have his own personal boundaries. And they can't just let things lie anymore. Letting things lie almost destroyed them without Farouk doing anything but— Sitting back and watching the fireworks. "I was jealous," she admits. "I _am_ jealous of Dvd, of Lenny, of—" She forces herself on. "Of everyone David loves who isn't me."

Syd glances around at everyone. Amy and Lenny already heard most of that, but Divad isn't surprised at all. Clark wasn't surprised either. Is she that obvious? She really was in denial, ignoring her own feelings while subjecting David to them.

Jesus, that's messed up. How did she not see it? She can't even remember all the things she thought. They were just thoughts, they didn't mean anything, they didn't matter. All that mattered were her actions, her words. She could control those.

But to a telepath, there is no difference between thoughts and words. David pretended there was for her sake, but that was just an illusion. If she's going to be with David, she really does have to change her thoughts.

"Dvd wants me to let you know that he's not going anywhere," Divad relays. "And— If you try to get between him and David—" He pauses again. "David says right now he's not with anyone. He has a lot to figure out about himself and he doesn't know what's right for him. But he's very sure that you two arguing over him is going to make him not want to be with either of you." He pauses. "Dvd's saying he's sorry." He turns away from Syd. "Yes, I know that was for David, but Syd should hear it, too. We're not sharing the relay, that doesn't mean we shouldn't share what we're saying. When I'm not in our body I want her to hear me."

"David, I'm sorry, too," Syd says. "You asked us to acknowledge our feelings and not do anything more than that. You need to be able to choose what you want for yourself."

"Dvd agrees," Divad relays, then listens. "David says thank you. And he says— He's glad you're letting Oliver help you. Oliver's helped him a lot and— If this is what he used to do, it's amazing and— David hopes someday he can help people the way Oliver has."

'That's very kind, thank you,' Oliver thinks, and everyone hears him. 'Syd, shall we begin?'

"Should we wait for Ptonomy?" Syd asks. She knows this is the right decision, but—

"Nah," Lenny says, her chin resting on Amy's shoulder. "Let him have his downtime, we got this."

"Behave," Amy warns Lenny. "This is a big step for Syd." She turns back to Syd. "Don't worry. We've all had lots of practice handling the Davids' thoughts. Whatever comes up, we'll talk about it and it'll be okay."

Syd thinks it's easy for Amy to say that when she's got Lenny snuggling her and Divad holding her hand. Syd feels so jealous of her for having that, and she feels jealous of Divad and Lenny for having Amy when Amy's Syd's friend now.

God, she's doing the same thing to Amy that she does to David. What's wrong with her?

"Okay, Oliver," Syd says, before she can run the other way until she hits another wall. "You can start now."


	95. Day 11: Sometimes we learn the wrong things.

It doesn't feel any different, having her thoughts relayed. Syd knows it's happening but she can't see it or feel it, and even though Amy and Lenny and Ptonomy can all hear what she's thinking right now, Amy and Lenny aren't reacting and Ptonomy isn't in the room. 

Out of sight, out of mind. It'd be so easy to forget what's happening if she lets herself, the same way way she let herself forget that Oliver and Farouk can hear her thoughts, that they've been hearing her thoughts all this time. The same way she ignored the fact that David could hear her thoughts and they were hurting him.

No, _them_. The Davids. Divad and Dvd might not be able to hear the thoughts of others the way David can, but they can hear David's thoughts. And David must have told them everything, the disembodied voices that sounded so much like his own and wanted to help him. God, that morning when they found out about the alters, that David still wasn't alone in his head, that he was still being controlled by other minds—

But Divad and Dvd aren't Farouk. David's working hard to accept them, to accept himself as part of their shared system, and Syd needs to accept them, too. She needs to connect with them, she needs—

She needs them to love her. She needs all the Davids to love her the way David loves her, because love makes her strong. Because she can't survive alone. Because if Divad and Dvd don't love her, either they'll take David away from her or David's love for her will pull his system apart, and then what? It would be so easy for Farouk to set her and the Davids against each other again, to manipulate them into another terrible mistake. David's sheer vulnerability might be part of why she fell in love with him, but if his love is what makes her strong—

She's watching him now, David. But David's not in his body, he's back up in the loft with Dvd and Kerry and Oliver. He could have stayed with her but he chose Dvd over her and that's— It's really hard for her to not be angry about that, even though David said he isn't with anyone right now no matter what feelings he has. Even though he desperately needs to heal his system and obviously that takes priority over healing his relationship with her. Even though they spent the morning coaxing David into accepting how much he does still feel for her.

It's Divad sitting on the sofa with Amy, struggling to open back up again after Syd interrupted them. Lenny's still snuggled up against Amy's back, arms around her waist, and— God, Syd wants that, she wants it so much. To hold someone like that— She's never held anyone like that, not with her own, actual body. What would it feel like? How would it compare to holding hands, to a hug, to a caress? Would it feel like holding David in the white room? He was always the big spoon when they curled up in bed together to sleep, but sometimes she just held him. Would it be different to hold Amy? Would it feel more intimate? Less? Would it upset her the way Amy's caress did this morning?

She doesn't know. But now that she can finally get what she needs, it hurts to not have it. It hurts to be so close to David and know he loves her but still be denied everything he used to give her. It hurts to sit here and watch Lenny and Divad both touching Amy and be denied that, too. It was always so much easier to ignore how much she wanted, to strangle her heart with pain until it was numb, like a sleeping limb. It was easier to pretend her heart wasn't even hers, that she could kill it completely and be free of it. That's the only thing she wanted to do until she met David, until his love woke her up.

But it's her heart, beating and alive at the center of her. She can't afford to ignore it anymore. The situation is too dangerous and everything is at risk. She needs to let herself feel what's in her heart and in her body, and trust that it won't destroy her and David and everyone else along with them.

The thought alone is terrifying, but at least she's not the only one dealing with it. If David can do it, if he can face his past and his trauma and the parts of himself that were cut off from his awareness, so can she. They can do it together. Ptonomy keeps saying it will be easier if they do it together. She's the one who's been holding herself back from that. She has to push herself forward.

She can do this. She can accept help. She can give and receive love. She needs to trust her friends, not her enemies. She needs to be open and vulnerable. That's the only thing that's going to save her.

§

Opening up and being vulnerable is going to ruin everything.

No matter how much everyone assures Divad that it's safe for him to let down his guard, that he needs to be honest with them and with David for their system to heal and be healthy— The safest thing has always been for their system to keep everything inside, for him to keep everything even deeper inside. The truth was only ever used against them to make their lives even more of a misery. Secrecy was the only way they could protect what little they had.

And now, as part of their therapy, Divad has to sit with someone and he has to talk to them — and not about science, but about himself, his feelings, his thoughts. So he's sitting with Amy and talking to her, or trying to. And now Syd is sitting with them, silently watching them while her private thoughts are exposed to the world, just like their system's has been. But it's not the mainframe or the world that Divad's worried about, not directly anyway.

David can hear everything Divad thinks and it's piped right into his head where he can't ignore it. All of Divad's terrible, monstrous thoughts, thoughts he's never been able to stop without turning himself off—

It's like the relay is a truth drug, forcing him to say things out loud so David only has to hear him from the outside and not the inside. And with David up in the loft, unable to see Divad, distracted by Kerry and Dvd and Oliver— 

If he has to tell his secrets to someone, he wants it to be Amy.

"I know it's—" Divad says, struggling as he forces himself to speak before he can think. "What he did to us, to _me_ — It wasn't David's fault, it wasn't—"

"It wasn't your fault either," Amy soothes.

It helps to hold Amy's hand. Even with Lenny snuggled up against Amy's back, watching them as silently as Syd, the touch of Amy's hand gives Divad something that makes the words come out easier. "I'm sorry about— You probably—"

"I don't hate you," Amy says, stroking the back of their hand. "You're my brother, Divad. You always have been. David's right, what you've done to him, what he's done to himself— It's the same."

"It doesn't feel the same," Divad admits. "All those years I was trapped— I was so angry at David, I was— Even though I couldn't do anything— What if he still heard me? There was so much noise in our head, but— I'm the reason David hung us."

"David hurt your system because he was afraid and in pain," Amy soothes. "It's the same reason why you've hurt David. Neither of you wants to hurt your system and you don't have to."

Divad takes a shaky breath and wipes at their eyes with their free hand. "It's worse, not being— Just a part of him. A stress response. Being me. I wanted to be me so much, but—" He wipes at his eyes again. "If I'm me— I just wanted him to stop screwing everything up. We're so powerful, it would have been so easy for us to hurt someone."

"But you didn't," Amy says. "And not because Farouk held you back. Because you care too much about other people to want them to suffer. That's how David feels."

"It's how he feels now," Divad says, unhappily. He glances up at the loft, then lowers his voice. "Farouk took that from me and— And put it into him."

"David didn't care about anyone else before college?" Amy asks, skeptical.

"Of course he did, but— People scared him," Divad says. "That's why he needed us to share with him all the time, to feel safe. Not just from the monster, but— Everyone else."

"David was a very sensitive baby," Amy recalls. "He was able to hear our thoughts and— Those must have been very confusing and upsetting for him. Maybe the reason he would only calm with me was because— When I was with him I didn't think about anything else but how much I loved him."

"I don't remember, but— Yeah," Divad says, his tension easing. "That's— Always how you made us feel, when we were little." He squeezes her hand, but look down, avoiding her eyes. "Safe. Loved."

"I'm sorry that changed for us. I never wanted you to feel like— You were unwanted."

"I know," Divad says, softly. "But David got the worst of it. He always got the worst of everything. I think— Keeping all the outside telepathy for himself— That was the same as giving us all his shielding."

"Telepathy hurt your system?" Amy asks.

"It hurt us a lot," Divad admits. "People lied to us all the time and we always knew. Eventually we realized that a lot of the time they were lying to themselves, but— It felt the same." He glances at Syd, then looks back at Amy. "And the schizophrenia diagnosis made everything so much worse. The more crazy you thought we were— The worse it was for David. The things he heard—"

"Did he tell you about them?" Amy asks. 

"Sometimes," Divad says. "He didn't like talking about it. He tried not to even think about it, but— The worst things— Haunted him and— Dvd always said— It didn't matter what everyone else thought. David had us and he didn't need anyone else, all those people who hurt us, who—" He pauses again, struggling. "If we get the crown off—"

"You don't want David to be hurt that way again," Amy guesses.

"Hearing everyone's thoughts— All that did was hurt him," Divad insists. Even if David has changed, even if he's stronger now— "Maybe he can handle us, but— He can't handle hearing the whole world. When Farouk remade him, he knew, he made David doubt everything so he wouldn't go crazy again."

"I don't think that's true," Amy says. "Farouk didn't want to protect David. He sabotaged him, did terrible things to him all the time."

"I was the only thing keeping David in line and the monster took me away from him," Divad insists, tightly. "I stopped David from— I saved him from himself, I did what was best for the world."

Syd gives a small, sharp gasp. But when everyone looks at her, she says nothing. Maybe Amy and Lenny hear something, but they don't tell Divad what it is.

"I think," Amy says to Divad, carefully, "Your system has never wanted to hurt anyone, even itself, even when parts of it were very scared and angry. Dvd has some of the same powers as David, but he's only ever used them to protect your system, to keep it safe. Do you think Dvd has too much power?"

"Dvd's not David."

"But he is," Amy reminds him. "And so are you. The little baby I held in my arms, he's all three of you now. You should help David manage his powers, but— Not because he needs to be saved from himself. Because with your help, he can save others. He can help make the world a better place. Don't you want that?"

"I mean— Yeah," Divad says, uncertain. 

"When you made the plan with David to leave here," Amy says, "David wanted to go somewhere quiet and green. Is that what you wanted?"

"No, but—" Divad gives a frustrated huff. "I wanted a lot of things, and that got me—" He falters but keeps going. "Punished."

"You were made a prisoner in your system's body for ten years," Amy says, stroking their hand again. "It must be hard to want anything after that."

Divad gives a tight nod. "We just— Needed to get away from— All of this. David needed to get away. It was David's life, not ours, not _mine_ , I—"

"It was never just David's life," Amy says. "But I think— It's like David's shielding and his telepathy. It had to be David's life because— It's been a terrible thing to be David. How old were you when you found out about DID?"

Divad startles at the question. "Um— Pretty young. We— David realized there was something different about us, that— Other people were alone in their heads. We thought maybe it was because we're mutants, but— The book didn't say anything so— We tried the library."

"And you found a psychology book?" Amy asks.

"We read a bunch of things," Divad says. "We didn't know what we were looking for, but— The idea of— Multiple minds in one body— It was multiple personality disorder then, MPD, and— None of the books agreed about what we were. Some said we were just something David made up for attention. Obviously that was wrong, but— Most of them talked about trauma, and we had a monster in our head, so—" He shrugs. "That made the most sense."

"But the books back then," Amy says. "Especially the ones in a small town library— They didn’t recognize you as individuals."

"No," Divad agrees. "We were just— Stress responses. Not real." 

"You were always real," Amy says. "Those books were wrong."

"We didn't want to be real," Divad admits, tersely, letting his thoughts appear on their tongue. "We thought— Not being real kept us safe. If we were— If we were nothing, the monster would leave us alone." He gives a bitter laugh. "And it did, sometimes. But that was a trick, he tricked us into torturing ourselves. He must have loved that so much."

"I'm sure he did," Amy says, soberly. "It's so important that your system stops torturing itself, Divad. That you love each other and yourselves instead of— Denying your right to exist. You exist, Divad. Just like David and Dvd exist. You're all full people who deserve to be alive and loved and safe. Even when you're afraid, hurting your system is never the answer."

Divad doesn't respond, but he holds Amy's hand with both of theirs, like it's a lifeline.

"Can I hug you?" Amy asks, hopeful.

Divad looks at her, uncertain. He looks past Amy's shoulder. "Lenny's pretty firmly attached."

"She has to share," Amy says, amused. She pries Lenny's arms from around her middle, and predictably Lenny grumbles but she sits back. Amy opens her arms, and Divad haltingly moves towards her. She closes the last distance and pulls him close, and he's stiff in her arms. But she keeps holding him and he eases, holds her back, gives a shaky breath.

Amy rubs Divad's back, soothing him. "When's the last time we hugged?" she asks.

"College," Divad says, because of course it was. Everything good ended there. "You visited us a month before— You hugged us goodbye."

"I remember," Amy says, softly. "I remember all the years we had together, Divad. I love you, Divad, I always have. I've always loved every part of my baby brother."

Divad makes a choked sound and buries their face against her hair. _Amy._

"I miss you," Divad admits. "I've been so alone—"

"I missed you, too," Amy says. "But we're together again. We're both here. We'll get through this together and help each other and— We'll be the family we always should have been, all four of us."

"But the things I've done," Divad protests. "If you love David— How can you forgive me?"

"Because I love you, too," Amy says. "All I want is for my brothers to be happy and healthy. I forgive you, Divad, because you're my brother and you've suffered so much, and— Because I failed you. You were only put into that terrible situation at all because me and Mom and Dad didn't keep you safe. If Mom and Dad were here— If they'd had the chance to know you the way I do, they would love you the way I do."

"No," Divad protests, but weakly.

"They would," Amy insists. "They always loved all of David. Especially Mom. She loved all of you so much."

"I miss her," Divad sniffs, crying harder now. "David forgot her, it hurts so much—"

"It does," Amy says. "But we remember her. We love her, we love Dad— Even though they're gone, we love them."

Divad closes their eyes tight and their face is wet with tears. "They wouldn't let us go to the funeral."

"I know. That was my fault, Divad, I'm so sorry. I left you in that place and I'm so, so sorry."

"You had to," Divad insists, through their tears. "I couldn't stop David anymore, you had to— We had to lock him away."

Amy pulls back from the hug to look at him. "Locking him away didn't help him, Divad. Clockworks was a terrible place, and— I know you'd never want David to be a prisoner in your system's body again."

Divad look away from her, ashamed. "No."

"The right kind of help is what your system's getting now," Amy continues. "We're helping your system heal so you can be stable." She touches his cheek, strokes it. "Don't you want that?"

"Don't take the crown off," Divad begs, quietly. "Please."

"Because of David?" Amy asks, concerned.

"Because of me," Divad admits. "I can't— If we lose the relay— I need someone to hear my thoughts or I won't— I'll ruin everything."

Amy gives him a sad smile. "Did you ruin everything before? Think about what Lenny said."

"She said to blame the monster, not our system," Divad says, trying not to be skeptical. He knows she's right, but—

"Of course you made mistakes," Amy soothes. "We all make mistakes. But nothing's ruined. What was it you said before? About apologies?"

"We try not to hurt our system, and we apologize if we do," Divad recites. 

"That's right," Amy says, and it reminds Divad of when they were small. He remembers Amy sitting with them, teaching them, smiling and giving them a hug when they did things right. She always made everything feel okay, if only for a while. "That's a healthy idea for your system. And that's in your mantra. Tell me what that is again?"

Divad feels like a child again, being guided to the answer. "We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop."

Amy gives him an approving smile. "Even when the crown and the relay are gone, all three of you will have those words. You'll have your foundation, too, when you've made it together. You'll all be working together, helping each other, so none of you has to be afraid. Just like you did for David, but for your whole system. Because you're all Davids. You're all my Davey, my baby brother." 

She pulls him into another hug, and this time it's easier for Divad to accept it. It feels like their whole body needs her to hold it. Divad was trapped for years, but even David— They couldn't reach past the barrier in the visitor's area so Amy could hold them like they needed her to. Clockworks treated them like prisoners, not patients, not people who needed care and support. They were just bodies to be subdued, beaten down, used—

"I hated that place," Divad admits, so he doesn't keep thinking about it. "I hated what they did to to David, to _us_ — I hated knowing the monster wanted us there and there was nothing we could do to stop him. I hated feeling like we deserved to be there, we had to be there because— If we weren't there, David would have—" It's hard to speak, their throat is so tight. "He'd have killed us, and he wouldn't even—" Tears pour down their cheeks again. "He wouldn't even know. He couldn't hear us. He couldn't hear us."

Amy hushes him, soothes him. "You're never going to be forgotten again, Divad," she promises. "The whole world knows you're here. No matter what happens, someone will always know you're here."

Divad sobs. He clings to Amy, wishing she hadn't lost her body, wishing so many awful things had never happened. But the awful things weren't David's fault, they were the monster's. The monster did them. They weren't David's fault, they weren't Divad's fault— But that only makes Divad feel terrifyingly helpless. For ten years, he couldn't do anything but watch, and before that—

"I don't want to be a David," he whispers. He wants to be a stress response again, to not be real at all, to be nothing more than a way for David to keep himself safe. He tried so hard to be a person in college and it destroyed them. He shouldn't ever be a person.

"You are a person, Divad," Amy insists. "You always were. And what happened in college wasn't your fault. Nothing you did made Farouk hurt your system, nothing. He made the choice to hurt you. It's okay to be angry with him. It's safe to let that out."

Divad shakes their head. "It's never safe," he says, because he can't dare to think that, to put that thought in David's head. "Whatever we build, he destroys."

"We won't let him destroy what we're building now," Amy says, certain. "Your mantra, your foundation? There's nothing he can do to take those away from you. If you make them yours, if your whole system makes it yours, they'll always be yours. Always, Divad. And you'll always have each other. David and Dvd want to love you, Divad. They want to be with you the way we're together now. You just have to let them."

"I want to," Divad admits. But it's hard, it's so hard. He's so afraid— And Dvd hates him and— David— "I tortured him, I—"

"I know," Amy soothes.

"I'm a monster," Divad whispers. He's Farouk's son, that's all he is.

"It wasn't your choice," Amy says, firmer now. "It wasn't your choice, Divad. He invaded your system's body, he tortured it. He chose to do that and nothing your system did caused it. What matters is what you do now, what you choose now that you're finally free. Don't love your mistakes more than your system, Divad. Don't let them eat you alive."

"The parasites," Divad says, remembering. The image of infestation still makes him shudder. And David thinking there was nothing left of them, that they'd already been eaten alive. Divad can't help but feel the same way.

"You survived," Amy insists. "Your whole system survived. You were apart for a long time, but now you're together again. Just like we're together. You were apart and now you can be together."

Divad wants that. He's been apart from his system for so long, even longer than he was apart from Amy. How can they ever fit together again? They're all too broken to fit.

"You're making a new system, remember?" Amy reminds him. "One for the way you are now. Have you thought about that? What you want your system to be?"

"I don't—" Divad starts. He hasn't. "I'm afraid to."

Amy pulls back again, strokes their arm. "Every time we make a healthy choice for ourselves and the people we love, that makes all of us a little safer. What would be healthy for you? What would make you feel better?"

"I don't know," Divad admits. "I've always— I didn't matter. Only David mattered, but David—" He swallows. "I don't know how to stop feeling angry or guilty or— Both, all the time. And I hate feeling so— Out of control. Like David. He was always so out of control, I just wanted—"

"You feel helpless," Amy says.

"I hate it," Divad says. "I hate it so much." He looks at her, pleading for her to understand.

"You've always tried to be the one who held everything together," Amy says. "You tried so hard to find a way to save your system from the monster, and when that failed— I know it's not the same, but I went through something so much like what you went through. I tried to save David the only way I knew how, and then— I was imprisoned in my own body. I had to watch as— As someone else lived in it, abused it with drugs—"

Lenny stiffens and frowns, and Amy pauses. They must be talking privately over the mainframe. Then Lenny slumps again.

"Losing control like that, losing my ability to— Be in the world—" Amy continues. "And losing Ben—" Her face creases with grief, but she breathes through it. "Having my husband ripped away like that, so suddenly— It's like the way you lost David. So I understand, Divad, I truly understand. And the fact that you survived all of that, that you endured it— You're so brave, you have— So much courage." She puts her hand over their heart. "You have so much love and hope, to go through all of that and come back and be there for David when he didn't even know who you were."

"I had to," Divad tells her. "That's what I'm for."

"You chose to," Amy insists. "You've never been helpless. You always made the choice to be there for your system however you could. You made the choice to love your system and hope for it and learn how to protect it with everything you have. And because of that love, your system is healing. You just have to let yourself heal with it."

Divad puts their hand over Amy's, holds on to it. 

"Sometimes we learn the wrong things," Amy continues. "Learning that you were only a stress response— I think you needed to believe that very much, to survive. But pulling away from what you were experiencing, denying that it was your life, too, dissociating so much— That's what made you feel truly helpless. And it wasn't fair to make David carry all of that. It wasn't fair for any of you."

Divad never— He never thought about it that way. Being a stress response became part of who he was such a long time ago. He can't really remember how he felt about himself before that.

"I think you felt like David," Amy says. "Afraid of the monster, confused and scared by the world. You wanted to feel safe, so you made a choice. And now you have the chance to make a different choice, a healthy one, so your system can be truly safe."

"But what should I do?" Divad asks, genuinely wanting to know. He tried taking charge of their life, but the monster— 

"You failed because you tried to save them alone," Amy says. "You need to let David and Dvd in. You need to let them help you. You all need to be in charge together and decide things together. You need to stop dissociating from each other."

"I've been— Dissociating from my system," Divad realizes. "And myself?"

"Just like David," Amy says. "Dissociation is very powerful. It's how all three of you survived. But you need to come back together, like we're together now. You need to open up your heart the way you've opened your thoughts. There's no relay for our hearts, Divad. We have to open them ourselves."

Divad feels the press of Amy's hand over their heart. He tries to imagine— David's hand over their heart, David holding him— And it feels strange and wrong, he's always been the one who helped David, who took care of David— 

But the way David is now, this David who— Who's different than he used to be— There's parts of Divad in David now, his memories, his desire to protect and help, maybe even— his bravery? David was always so afraid. But it was easy for Divad to be brave when he let all the bad things happen only to David and not to him, whether he was a stress response or a separate person. It made it easy for Divad to blame David for everything they were suffering, because none of it was happening to him, even though it was.

He doesn't know how he's supposed to feel about all of that. He just feels— Scared and confused and— He feels alone and— He doesn't want to be alone anymore.

"You've never been alone," Amy promises. "Me and David and Dvd have always been with you, no matter how far apart we were. All you have to do is stay with us. Let us be with you and help you. We love you, Divad. We love you so much."

Divad takes a shaky breath. Amy loves him? Amy loves him. She knows him, she understands him, and— She loves him.

Divad reaches out and pulls Amy into another hug, holding her so tightly. Then he loosens his grip, but— He holds her. He lets her hold him, and— Some small part of the awful tension in his chest loosens, lightens. 

He's not a stress response. He's not a separate person. He's a David— And maybe that's okay. 

"That's a wonderful thought," Amy praises, warmly. "I'm so proud of you, Divad."

Divad smiles against Amy's hair. He feels— Happy? He felt good helping Cary and Oliver, he felt proud and satisfied to use his knowledge to help, but— To have Amy praise him for having healthy thoughts— 

That's what he wants. He wants it so much, to have someone— Protect him and love him and— Help him have healthy thoughts—

"Maybe you can ask David and Dvd to help with that," Amy says. 

Divad sobers, pulls away from Amy's embrace. "They don't need me. They have each other." He can hear it, how happy they make each other. It makes him feel so alone.

"I think David has enough love for both of you," Amy says. "He wants to help you, Divad. He wants to be with you. He keeps reaching out for you. You just have to take his hand."

"We can't touch when we're separated," Divad says. 

"It'll be Dvd's turn to have your system's body soon," Amy reminds him. "David will need you to stay with him. He wants you to, we've both heard it. Maybe— If you open up to David, he'll be able to give you what you need."

"Maybe," Divad says, doubtful, but— The idea lingers in him anyway. The image of David's hand over their heart— 

No. It feels ridiculous to ask David to love him when he's the one who's hurt David so much. He tortured David, he _tortured him_ , not just in college but for years, with cruel words and judgement. He doesn’t see how they could be anything but over. They’re never going to be a system again. Divad ruined all of that. It’s done, it’s over, no hope of return.

But David forgot. He knows what happened but he can't actually remember it. It feels wrong to be glad that David forgot when that hurts him so much, but— If David remembered, he'd never— 

Maybe this is a second chance for them. Maybe leaving all that behind— Maybe they really can just start over. Make the system they want to have, be the people they want to be— 

And in that small space in his heart, the lightness there, Divad feels a spark of hope.


	96. Day 11: Are you prepared to be reborn?

Syd's jealous. Syd's unbelievably jealous of Lenny, privately dying inside of jealousy of Lenny for being snuggled up with Amy, and Lenny just basks in every relayed thought. Everyone should be jealous of Lenny right now, she's got the best seat in this place and she knows that for a fact. Even Divad's jealous, mixed-up kid that he is, and he's been holding Amy's hand and haltingly talking to her for a while now, despite Syd's dramatic interruption.

They'll all have to wait their turns. Lenny's not giving up the one thing that's helping her feel like herself again, whoever herself even is anymore. 

Maybe Amy was right to give her the foundation speech. The inside of her head is starting to sound a lot like the inside of David's. It's just— She thought she had a handle on things. And maybe if she hadn't lost her body _again_ she would have been just fine, but— 

Going back to her old life, blowing off some steam, yeah, it felt good. That party felt real good, and driving New Janine out of her tiny brain felt even better. But when it was over, she could think was: what the hell was she doing there? Yeah, Amy annoyed her into getting off her ass, but finding that car, going off to save the world? Fuck yeah that felt good. Like it felt good to help Ptonomy claw David back from the shit beetle. Like it felt good to be David's hero all day yesterday.

But being a patient isn't entirely awful if it gets her this. Kerry felt good, yeah, for a brief, glorious moment. But clinging to Amy like a baby monkey makes her feel more than good. It's like some lizard part of her brain is getting its chin scratched. She's never been much of a cuddler, she was too jumpy to just lie in some chick's arms without doing something about it. But this? She could do this all day.

She sighs and nuzzles against Amy's shoulder. She shifts her grip around Amy's waist, tempted again to explore, but she doesn't want to end up having to cuddle with, like, Ptonomy or Cary or Oliver. They’re great and all, helping the Davids, but that's a hard no. If she has to cuddle someone else, she supposes she could handle baby-monkeying a David. Kerry's out, the only reason she hasn't already kicked Lenny's ass is because Amy talked her out of it. And Syd? The two of them can barely hold a civil conversation, forget snuggles.

It's a shame they gotta keep this whole situation so tight. Yeah, there's the night crew helping out with the science stuff and Ptonomy's getting some private time with his family. But this is a psychic battlefield, and the game pieces are relationships, emotions, ideas. The Admiral's already busy running simulations, running the odds with the pieces they have.

They could bring in New Janine. She's a known factor, no ties, and it's not like it would be hard for D3 to find her and drag her in. But as cute as she is, Lenny'd feel shitty putting her at risk of being tortured forever. Besides, Lenny's banged plenty of chicks like her, and they're fun for a night or three, but then—

Lenny's not sure what. She has two sets of memories, and the one she remembers better isn't the one that's real. It was one thing when she thought Benny was alive somewhere, living it up as an asshole junkie. Being trapped for so long, barely knowing where and who she was? It was soothing to think of Benny that way, free and wild. It made her feel less dead. But surprise, Benny's the dead one, he wasn't even alive when Farouk killed her. Which means the Benny parts of her aren't even Benny at all. They're just— Some bullshit Farouk dreamed up after years sitting around David's head while David sat around a mental hospital. They're David's memories of Benny and whatever Farouk got from all his spying, which must’ve been a lot, but— It wasn't the real Benny copied into her. It was Farouk's Benny.

That's what she is. A Farouk-Benny cocktail, sweetened with Lenny syrup to make it go down easy for David. 

The knowledge makes her feel sick. It makes her want to run to the sink and throw up like David did, like Syd did, but this body's got no stomach to empty. There’s no bile or spit, there's no physical release for what she's carrying inside her. All she can do is hold on to Amy and breathe, because at least these bodies do a good simulation of breathing. Aesthetically accurate.

Fuck. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to let Amy go. 

Lenny searches around for a distraction, and she doesn't have to go far. David and Dvd are back up in the loft with Oliver and Kerry, and David and Dvd are, ah— Thinking about each other. It's almost as halting as Divad's attempts to open up to Amy, to share his pain and guilt and anger. Dvd and David are all mixed-up too, but in a sweet kinda way. Dvd doesn't want to hurt David by wanting him too much even though he wants him _a lot_ , and David isn't sure what he wants but keeps feeling things for Dvd anyway. He doesn't even know if his feelings are old or new or some combination of both, but there's something about loving Dvd that feels familiar and after the cherry memory David is jonesing hard for familiar. She wants to tell them to just kiss and get over themselves already, but Ptonomy made it extremely clear to everyone that they have to give David space to work as much of this out for himself as he can. He needs a kick once in a while to help him get past his massive denial skills, he needs loads of guidance, but— The kid's gotta do this himself or it won't be his.

Lenny relates to that way too much right now. She doesn't know what's hers anymore. Fuck, did she even call David 'kid' in her real memories? Benny was a lot older than both of them, maybe that’s where it came from. Her body's memories are frustratingly hazy. This must be how Oliver feels, straining for something he can pull out of the fog that isn't snatches of poetry. It's the fucking worst, she doesn't know how he's so calm about it. It creeps her out, thinking she might get so detached again she won't even care.

She didn't care about being detached when Farouk had her. If anything, she was grateful that nothing felt real. She felt that way about Clockworks, the way they had her drugged up all the time. Floating through life is how she's survived in all her memories. And now, if she doesn't get anchored fast, she might lose herself for good.

But Lenny's always been a survivor. She'll give that to Syd, survival's everything to her, too. The difference between them is she never wanted to survive alone. 

David was her drug buddy, before Clockworks and in it. She knows how much he loves her, how much he wants to get closer to her the way he has with everyone else. She knows he wants to help her the way she's helped him. But she was the shit beetle's mask. She was the body he wore to hurt David, to torture him, to rape him. She doesn't want to admit to David that part of the monster is still inside her. She just got him back, he's all she has. If she loses him now, what's left to stop her from floating away again?

Amy’s got the same problem. Hell, so do Syd and Dvd. The four of them have each had a turn being all that David had, and he got them all hooked one way or another. Lenny doesn’t feel like she has to own David like Syd and Dvd do, she needs to live her own life. But she can’t lose him either, she just can’t.

She wonders if that's how Farouk feels. She knows how jealous he is, how possessive, how much he wants to own David, body, mind, and soul. Except even if he somehow made himself all David had, even if that got him hooked, he's the reason David needs so badly in the first place. How fucked up is that? Maybe she should be glad there's some Benny in her cocktail. Whatever he was actually like, at least he wasn’t Farouk.

Or Divad. It's incredibly fucked up that David needs to hurt himself so bad it takes two of himself to fit it all in. 

"He can't handle hearing the whole world," Divad is saying, still going on about David. For the alter that supposedly wants to be his own person, he's as obsessed with controlling David as Farouk is. "When Farouk remade him, he knew, he made David doubt everything so he wouldn't go crazy again."

"I don't think that's true," Amy says. "Farouk didn't want to protect David. He sabotaged him, did terrible things to him all the time."

"I was the only thing keeping David in line and the monster took me away from him," Divad insists, tightly. "I stopped David from— I saved him from himself, I did what was best for the world."

Syd gives a small, sharp gasp. 'Just like Farouk,' she thinks, horrified. 

Amy sends a question into the mainframe, then sends the surveillance clip she gets to Lenny: Syd and Farouk palling it up in the cafeteria right after David got knocked out and dragged down to the cells. Lenny was pissed off the first time she saw that footage. What the fuck was wrong with Syd, sitting down for drinks with the shit beetle? 

"Shut up," Syd says, in the surveillance footage. "I know what you're doing and it's not going to work."

"Then you still love him?" Farouk asks, being a piece of slimy shit as usual. "Your David? You will let him back into your head, your heart, your body, after he has violated them?"

"He needs help," Syd says, defiant.

"Perhaps," Farouk says. "Perhaps it is my help that he needs. I have guarded him all his life, saved him from himself. A little boy with too much power. Can you imagine the devastation? One tantrum and he wishes away his mother, his father, his country. I have always done what is best for the world."

Saved him from himself. Did what was best for the world. Lenny flags the words and sends the clip to Ptonomy to chew on when he's done with his break. They might not be able to pick through Farouk's head directly, but with the Davids reenacting their trauma all the time, they don't really have to. 

"I think," Amy says to Divad, carefully, "Your system has never wanted to hurt anyone, even itself, even when parts of it were very scared and angry. Dvd has some of the same powers as David, but he's only ever used them to protect your system, to keep it safe. Do you think Dvd has too much power?"

"Dvd's not David," Divad protests. 

So only David has too much power. Lenny slaps another flag on the clip. Farouk used that idea to convince Syd to take David down in the desert. If it's in Divad's head, too, then he used it on David. Except power is the only thing Farouk cares about, she knows that for a fact. The only reason he'd say someone shouldn't have power is because he wants it for himself.

While Amy keeps working on Divad, Lenny skims through the surveillance feeds to soothe herself. It's weirdly relaxing to watch everyone like this, invisible and all-seeing. She could easily travel beyond D3, take a swim in the data feeds like Ptonomy used to. There's so much in the mainframe, it would be easy to lose herself there— But that's how Oliver lost himself on the astral plane. The thought pulls her back to the body she's in, to the body she's holding. If she's gonna stay herself, she needs to stay present, grounded. She needs to stay in the physical world, not the vast computer that's serving as her mind. She needs to be Lenny, not Benny, and absolutely not the shit beetle. 

She's gotta take her own advice, she knows that. But knowing doesn't make it any easier.

§

Lenny has to share Amy for a while so Divad can get a few hugs in, but then she gets right back to her baby-monkeying. And then Ptonomy comes back and breaks up the fun. It's okay, if she starts to drift she can get another fix. And right now she feels like her lizard brain has been given its fill of chin-scratching.

Ptonomy calls everyone over and they gather at the table. Time for another snack, apparently. But he brought too many servings. Cary's still out so they should only need four, but there's— Seven?

"Before he had to go into Kerry, Cary and I discussed ideas for how to help Oliver reconnect with his memories," Ptonomy explains. "So for some of our meals, we're going to eat foods that have personal meaning to Oliver. Oliver, you traveled a lot. You like a lot of different foods. With each of these meals, I'm going to show you photographs from the times you were in the places where you might have eaten these foods. Our goal is to see if anything clicks, and if it does, to use these triggers to strengthen those connections. If David and Dvd are okay with it, I’d like you to stop relaying so you can focus on your memories."

He looks to the pair of empty chairs where David and Dvd are sitting. She caught David thinking about taking Dvd’s hand when they sat down, so he and Dvd must be holding hands again, as snuggled up as David is ready for them to be. Lenny's never gonna get over invisible David, no matter how many times he steps out of his body.

"We’re okay," David says. ‘I have Dvd.’

Lenny can’t see Dvd’s reaction to that, but she’s pretty sure it’s a happy one.

"Relay going off," Oliver announces.

"So what’s with the extra bowls?" Divad asks, probably to distract himself from whatever hearts are flying around David and Dvd’s heads.

"The extra bowls are actually for me, Amy, and Lenny," Ptonomy says, and starts distributing them.

"Uh, say that again?" Lenny asks. "We can't eat."

"We can't," Ptonomy agrees. "But we need these bodies to feel as real as possible, so we're going to try something new." He turns back to Oliver. "After David's comfort food was such a success, I thought we'd start with one of Oliver's. And since we're having success with China— This is congee, or Chinese rice porridge. It's a staple of Chinese cuisine. This is chicken congee, seasoned with green onions, ginger, and soy sauce. It's generally served for breakfast with yóutiáo, a Chinese pastry." He distributes long strips of fried dough, each wrapped in a napkin. He also gives Oliver a stack of photos.

Kerry gives her bowl a wary sniff. "Smells okay," she says, but she doesn't look certain.

"The congee is soft," Ptonomy says. "So it should be easy for you to eat. You might have more trouble with the yóutiáo, but you're supposed to dip it in the congee before you eat it. That'll soften it." He turns to Divad. "Divad, this is a chance for you to try something new and experience it with your system's body. I know your system never got the chance to travel, so think of this as the first step on your own personal world tour."

Divad smiles at that. "Thanks, Ptonomy."

"And Syd, I'm not sure if you've ever had this, but if not, it's something new for you, too. But what's more important is that we're sharing it together, as friends and family."

Syd gives a quiet smile, and looks at Divad and Amy, hopeful. 

"What do we do?" Amy asks.

"Start with sensory therapy, like we've already been doing," Ptonomy says. "Smell the food, feel the yóutiáo, stir the congee. Stimulate your senses as much as possible."

Lenny's used to that by now. She picks up the bowl, feels the warm ceramic against her hands. She breathes in the steam from the congee. It smells savory, chickeny, the ginger and soy reminding her of all the cheap Chinese takeout places she used to eat at. With her mess of a brain, food as memory therapy isn't a terrible idea for her either. 

She picks up the yóutiáo. It's like an unglazed doughnut, or a churro without the cinnamon-sugar. Seems kinda boring, but she feels the crusty texture, smells the oily dough. She wouldn't mind eating it, if only she actually could.

When the three of them finish, Ptonomy continues. "Okay. So the problem we have is that we can experience food through smell and touch, but we can't complete the sensations of eating. But being part of the mainframe does give us a real body: the Admiral's. So we're going to try something. He's got his own serving of the same food. And he's going to eat for us, and the mainframe will route his sensations to us."

"Uh, I thought if we felt his body, it would overwrite us," Lenny says, concerned. "The mainframe's supposed to protect us."

"That's true," Ptonomy agrees. "But these short bursts shouldn't be a problem. It might feel a little weird, but if we mimic the actions we're experiencing, using the same foods, it'll give us the illusion of eating with our android bodies."

"This is absolutely weird," Lenny says, despite her entire life being a mountain of fucking weird. "Okay, whatever, let's do it."

"I'm ready," Amy says, hopeful.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "We'll start with just the congee. Whatever we experience, just try to follow it. Just don't actually eat anything."

The three of them have been sharing experiences back and forth over the mainframe, but those experiences are from the past, like extremely vivid memories. This comes to her live. She's already holding the spoon, but she feels herself take the spoon. She feels herself lift the spoon and follows the sensation. She brings it into her mouth and— She tastes the congee, the rice, the ginger, the chicken. She feels herself chewing the soft grains, the small chicken pieces, the little circles of green onion. She feels herself swallow, feels the food in her throat and then a warm weight in her stomach.

Lenny has never been so aware of every single step of eating in her entire life.

"Weird," Divad says, watching their synchronized not-eating.

"Super weird," Kerry agrees, fascinated.

The sensations fade. She looks at Ptonomy and Amy.

"It'll take some getting used to," Amy admits. "But it felt real. It felt like eating."

Lenny's had too many times in her life where she barely had enough money to feed herself. And when she did get fed regularly, like at Clockworks, the food was crap. She just wanted to shove it into her stomach as fast as possible so she didn't have to taste it. Eating so slowly and deliberately is massively fucking weird. No wonder eating freaks Kerry out so much. "I've always been a fast eater. Is the Admiral gonna savor every bite?"

"These meals are therapeutic," Ptonomy reminds her. "Feeling the entire process will help our minds stay coherent. And if he eats too fast, we won't be able to move our bodies to match him. That will break the illusion. Let's try the yóutiáo."

It's easier now that Lenny knows what to expect. She mimics biting down on the pastry, chews and feel the resistance of the soft, crunchy dough, tastes the oil and the salt and a hint of sweetness. She likes it a lot better than the congee. She's never really been big on porridge.

Fuck, she's eating. She's not, but like— It really feels like she's eating. 

"Okay," she says, as it sinks in. "Can I like, make requests?" She could have Twizzlers again, she could have chocolate, she could have an actual _drink_.

"Absolutely," Ptonomy says, pleased. "But remember that the Admiral has to actually eat for us to experience it. We can't abuse this. So we're not getting him drunk."

"Dammit," Lenny sighs. Ptonomy knows her too well. She didn't even get to ask. 

"And for the sake of everyone's therapy," Ptonomy continues, "we'll still share the same foods as much as possible."

"Shit, this is wild," Lenny says, grinning. "Okay, from now on, I'm in charge of desserts."

"David wants to know if we can all ask for things," Divad relays.

"Everyone can contribute their requests," Ptonomy says. "Some things are fixed, like Oliver's memory foods, but the rest is flexible. Think about what you want and let me or Lenny or Amy know, and we'll work it in."

"Um, how about pizza?" Syd asks. 

"I'm sure we can manage that," Ptonomy says.

"Dvd wants Hawaiian," Divad relays.

"Really?" Syd asks, disbelieving.

"David also wants Hawaiian," Divad relays. "I’m good with that."

Lenny thinks the Davids only like that because it has fruit on it. The Davids don’t have a single sweet tooth so much as an entire set.

Syd gives the empty chairs a tolerant look. "I’ll have green peppers and mushrooms."

"Boring," Lenny says. "I want a meat supreme." Yeah, just piles of pepperoni and sausage and bacon all slathered in cheese. Her mouth isn't watering because it can't, but it totally would if it could.

"We'll work something out," Ptonomy says, amused.

"Is pizza hard?" Kerry asks. She pokes at the yóutiáo. "I really don't like hard things."

"The top is soft," Ptonomy says. "But it has a chewy crust. You should rip up a few pieces of that and put it in the congee for a while," he says, pointing at her yóutiáo.

Kerry starts pulling tiny pieces off the pastry and drowning them in the congee.

"Divad, how do you like yours?" Syd asks.

"It's nice," Divad says. "It's like chicken soup with rice, but, um, more rice than soup."

"It is," Syd says, with a small smile. "Um, my mom used to make a lot of soup. For the salons. Everything was always— A presentation, fancy recipes. Sometimes she'd make the same dish over and over for days until she got it just right." She makes a face. "I'd get really sick of it, so I'd, uh, sneak out for pizza instead."

"So pizza's your comfort food?" Divad asks.

"Yeah, I guess it is," Syd says, looking between Divad and the empty chairs beside him. "It's not that far from cheese on toast."

"Yeah," Divad says, quietly. His eyes flick to where David is sitting, but he doesn’t relay anything. Whatever’s happening must be thoughts, expressions. Based on Divad's vague air of annoyance, Lenny’s sure if they could see David's face, he’d be looking at Syd all sappy. She knows David’s sappy face extremely well. There’s a part of her that’s annoyed at Syd for that, but she doesn’t know if it’s Lenny or Benny or— 

She doesn’t know. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, and she’s starting to realize that’s not the kind of problem they can afford to ignore.

‘Hey, Ptonomy,’ Lenny says over the mainframe. ‘Think we can fit in that Benny session today?’

‘I think so,’ Ptonomy sends back. ‘You’re having trouble?’

‘Is it that obvious?’ Lenny asks.

‘We’re all keeping a close eye on each other,’ Ptonomy says. ‘We have to.’

‘Yeah,’ Lenny sighs. ‘I’m not drifting, I’m just— A cocktail. A shit cocktail.’

‘Don’t think of yourself that way,’ Amy says. ‘It’s not good for David, it’s not good for you.’

‘David's cocktail isn't full of Farouk,’ Lenny grumbles. 

‘I know you feel defined by Farouk’ Ptonomy says, patiently. 'But so does David. If you can see the good in him, you can see it in yourself.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Lenny moans, but it’s hard to argue with that. She and David really do have way too much in common. Cocktail minds, messed-up memories, and hell, turns out he’s not even straight. She really should have figured that out ages ago, even before she was mixed with Benny. Hell, maybe she knew but Farouk made her forget. 

Fuck, that’s creepy. It makes her feel like there’s no solid ground under her feet, just like David and his quicksand. She needs to know who Benny really was so she can figure out what parts of her are him and what’s Farouk and what’s left that could actually be the real her, if there’s anything at all. And the best people to help with that are Divad, Dvd, and Syd. 

Syd knew the real Lenny for a year. Sure, they weren’t best buds or anything, but they were together pretty much all the time, a little mutual protection squad. And Farouk might have dipped into Syd’s head and nosed around, but every time he tried to do more than that, his changes never stuck. Syd’s powers might be a pain, but they’re a mental parasite’s worst nightmare. She just has too much coherence for him to do any real damage. He's still found plenty of ways to fuck with her, but he can’t make her lose who she is. If Lenny’s truly jealous of anything, it’s that. 

"Oliver, does the food remind you of anything?" Ptonomy prompts. He reaches over and spreads out the photos so Oliver can look at them as he eats. 

Oliver dips his yóutiáo and takes a bite, savoring it. He looks at the photos again, closes his eyes in thought. "Ordering peas in the French restaurant," he recites, "Whole garlic bread, cheese, and coffee hot. Pink ponk of the rain on the roof tin below my shuttered window."

"Okay, there's something there," Ptonomy says. "Keep tasting the food. Think about the feeling the poem gives you. Try to see yourself in the poem, eating the food."

They all watch Oliver eat, curious to see if this will work.

"It rained when you were in China," Ptonomy reminds him. "Listen to the sound of rain against the roof. Were you in the shelter? Somewhere else?" He nudges the photo of Melanie in a Chinese dress. "Maybe you were with Melanie."

"Melanie," Oliver murmurs. "There was a lamp."

"What kind?" Ptonomy prompts. "Electric? Candle?"

"Oil," Oliver says. "Conspirators at cafe tables discussing mystic jails."

"You were talking to someone," Ptonomy suggests. "Were you talking to Melanie? Can you see her with the lamp?"

Oliver's brow furrows. "Chinese coffee in small glasses."

"You were drinking something together," Ptonomy says. "Was it coffee?"

"Coffee," Oliver says, and opens his eyes in surprise. "I remember."

"Tell us," Ptonomy says, excited.

"I remember— Melanie," Oliver says, eyes distant as he looks at the photograph. "She was wearing this. It was late, we were tired, but— We didn't want to go to sleep."

"So you drank coffee?" Ptonomy asks.

Oliver nods. "I think— We were out somewhere. And then we came back."

"Stay with the memory," Ptonomy urges. "Try to remember the taste and smell of the coffee. Follow the feelings, let them lead you."

Oliver closes his eyes again, concentrates. "The skin trembles in happiness. The soul comes joyful to the eye." The words should be happy, but he doesn't sound happy. He shakes his head, disturbed.

"This is a powerful memory, Oliver," Ptonomy says. "Even in the ice cube, some part of this memory stayed with you. It's coming back to you now, don't fight it."

Lenny spent a lot of time with Oliver over the past year. They were both lost to themselves, barely anything but dolls for Farouk to pose and play with. But at least when they were together, they weren't alone. They were— Detachment buddies, floating through an ocean of horrors so they didn't drown.

She never saw him cry. Nothing's been real to him for decades, why would he cry? And now tears leak from his eyes.

"Oh," Oliver says, noticing them. He wipes them away and more fall in their place. "I think— I feel quite sad about something."

"About Melanie?"

Oliver looks confused. "I don't— I'm not sure."

'I wish Cary was awake for this,' Ptonomy mutters over the mainframe, and then aloud: "Take your time. Amy, could you get Oliver a coffee?"

"Of course," Amy says, getting up.

"Stay with the feeling," Ptonomy tells Oliver. "Don't let that sadness get away. I know it hurts, but there's so much connected to that pain. There's love so powerful it held on when everything else was gone. There's a whole life waiting for you to remember it. Just keep holding on to it."

"The churning of the ocean," Oliver recites, distressed. "I'm afraid where I am. No rest, no dreams— Who weeps for this pain?"

"Hey, it's okay," Lenny says, intervening. She pushes away the photos, the food. 

"Lenny—" Ptonomy says, annoyed.

"Stop pushing him," Lenny tells Ptonomy, annoyed back. It's David all over again. "And forget the coffee. Forget all of this."

"He needs to remember," Ptonomy urges.

"And what's he gonna remember, huh?" Lenny asks. "What's that gonna do to him?"

"He needs the truth as much as we all do," Ptonomy says, certain.

"He's better off as a happy zombie," Lenny insists. 

Ptonomy gives her a knowing look. "This isn't about Oliver."

"Fuck you," Lenny snarls. "You don't _know_."

"We know," Ptonomy says, firmly. "We know what he did to you, Lenny, and to Oliver. Just like we know what he did to the Davids. It's okay to be scared, but we have to keep going."

Lenny absolutely doesn't want to keep going, that's the last thing she wants. But before she can snarl that out, Oliver's hand touches her arm, and she startles.

"Back off," she spits, teeth bared.

"I appreciate your concern," Oliver tells her, calm again despite his reddened eyes. "But I want to remember."

Lenny stares at him. How is he so calm? No matter what happened to them, he was always so calm, and she thought— She just figured he was too far gone to care, but—

The kettle whistles, and Amy goes to make the coffee. She brings it over and gives it to Oliver, who stirs it before raising it to his mouth and breathing in deeply.

"The skin trembles in happiness. The soul comes joyful to the eye." Oliver cries as he recites the lines again, but— He's okay.

Lenny realizes she's been waiting for him to fall apart, to let out his emotions in some kind of uncontrollable explosion. But that's David's thing, not Oliver's. She never knew Oliver before the ice cube, but Cary remembers. From what he said, Oliver never floated through life. He used to feel plenty and he handled everyone else’s shit on top of his own. Maybe that was too much for him in the end, but Oliver was probably the least fucked-up person on Earth until the detachment syndrome got him and Farouk nearly finished the job.

She's the one who’s always been fucked-up and doesn't want to remember. She barely even wants to remember being Lenny. The only good thing in any of her memories is David, and what does that say about her? What's left of her for anyone to save? She’s not even real. Maybe she never was.

"Reality is a question of realizing how real the world is already," Oliver tells her, and it feels more like actual advice than some random quotation. "My fingertips touching reality's face, my own face streaked with tears in the mirror of some window at dusk. Gods dance on their own bodies, new flowers open, forgetting death. Are you prepared to be reborn?"

Lenny just stares at him.

Oliver takes a sip of the coffee and smiles.


	97. Day 11: You're both more than stress responses.

"'We're all Davids'," Ptonomy reads. "'We're all people. We're brothers.' These three ideas were suggested for your shared foundation. How do you all feel about them now?"

"Ah, I guess— I'm not sure about 'brothers' anymore," David admits. Or maybe brothers is what they were supposed to be and— Things went wrong? Maybe they shouldn't love each other that way?

'Oh no,' Dvd thinks, upset.

"That's a valid concern," Ptonomy tells them. "David, earlier you wanted to know if it was okay for identities to fall in love. Every system is different, but it's actually quite common."

"It is?" David asks, surprised.

"Identities don't really adhere to traditional ideas of social structure," Ptonomy explains. "An identity is not a separate person with their own physical existence. Members of a single system can vary drastically in age, gender, personality, memory, race, or even be constructed around fictional characters or animals. Their relationships can be just as varied."

"Animals?" The first thing David thinks of is when he found Syd on the roof, and she was playing with a dead pigeon. "Like when Matilda's mind is in Syd?"

"Yes, very much like that," Ptonomy agrees. "In fact, a common problem for identities is something called dysphoria." He looks over to Kerry, who's watching their session from one of the beanbag chairs. "Dysphoria is the feeling you get when your body doesn't match what your mind says it should be. It's what you felt when you were inside Cary, and it's what David felt after he swapped with Syd."

"Dysphoria," Kerry echoes, thoughtful. 

"A lot of people struggle with dysphoria, with or without DID," Ptonomy continues. "It can be very uncomfortable and distressing. When Cary wakes up, that's something we're going to need to help him with." He turns back to the three of them on the sofa. "Fortunately, that's one of the few things your system doesn't have to deal with," he says, with gentle humor. "But to get back to your point: brothers may not be the best term to use, given your past relationship and the feelings you have now."

"But Amy's still our sister," Divad insists, tensing. 'I just got her back, I don't want to lose her.'

"She's still your sister, and you're all still her brothers," Ptonomy agrees. "No matter what terms you use, nothing will change the fact that you love each other."

Divad relaxes again. 'She loves me. _Me_.' He marvels at the idea. 

David thinks it must have been awful for Divad and Dvd, always having to pretend to be him. He doesn't know if it was his idea or not, he can't remember, but— It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It was— It was like when he tried to put his lamp back together with packing tape. Anyone could do a better job than an escaped mental patient weaning himself off an insane amount of Haldol. And anyone could build a better system than three traumatized children who were being tortured by a monster.

Divad turns and stares at him. 'I should have thought of that,' he thinks. 'Why didn't I think of that?' He looks away, back to Ptonomy. 'Because I was just a stress response?’

"You were never just a stress response," Ptonomy soothes. "David's coming to your system with a fresh perspective. That's helping you decide what's healthy for you now. That’s why I think it would be very helpful to read about the experiences of other systems. I've picked out a few autobiographies to get you started. I'd like all four of you to read them, talk about them. Cary too, once he's awake."

"But we might not even be a system," Kerry protests.

"That's true," Ptonomy admits. "But even if you're not, you two have a lot in common with systems like David. It will be very nutritious for you. Autobiographies are— They're a lot like having someone's relay. You get to hear their thoughts, see the world through their eyes. That can help you understand the world and yourself better." He softens. "I know this has all been a lot for you. But don't you still want to understand yourself?"

"Of course I do," Kerry insists. "I just—" She puts her hand over her belly. "I didn't think it'd be so—" She frowns. "I thought Cary being inside me would make everything okay."

"But it hasn't?" Ptonomy prompts.

Kerry shakes her head. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says, and considers the four of them. "You know, sometimes when problems are overwhelming, we feel desperate for a solution. We tell ourselves: If I do one thing, everything will be okay. But that one thing doesn't fix all our problems. It can't. A lot of the time, it only ends up making our problems worse, and then we feel even more helpless and guilty, even more desperate for a way out. And we don't know what else to do, so we try that one thing again. That loop traps us and it's really hard to break it on our own."

"So how do we break the loop?" Kerry asks.

"We ask someone to help us," Ptonomy says. "Someone else can see what we can't. They have a different perspective, different knowledge and abilities. That's why it's so important to share our lives with people who care about us, and to not be afraid to ask for help when we're hurt or scared." 

He looks to Divad, David, Dvd. He can't see two of them, but he looks because— They're people and they deserve to be treated like people. David couldn't accept that back when all this started, he didn't understand the point of leaving empty seats for his hallucinations. But Divad and Dvd were never hallucinations.

Dvd gives David's hand a squeeze, pleased by his thought. 'We've always been here,' he thinks to David. 'We never left you, not for a minute.'

'You didn't,' David thinks, and— It's getting easier to accept that, for that to feel like a good thing. Dvd's always been there, devoted to him unconditionally. No matter what happened, Dvd never stopped loving him. David's always had his lamp, he's always had Amy, and he's always had Dvd.

And Divad. He's always had Divad, too.

"You don't have to force yourself to love me," Divad says, unhappily. 'The first time was bad enough.'

'Coward,' Dvd thinks, mocking.

"It's easy for you," Divad says, angrily. "Why don't you talk to Syd again? Then we'll see who's a coward."

"Hey, you haven't talked to Syd either," Dvd returns.

"I did," Divad defends. "We talked over lunch."

"What, about pizza?" Dvd rolls his eyes. "Yeah, real deep."

"At least I didn't blow up because I was scared," Divad says. 'Scared because David loves Syd more than you.'

Dvd glares at him, looking mutinous.

David rubs his face, unable to even know where to start. "Divad, I don't know if we're brothers or something else, but whatever we are, we have to live together for the rest of our lives— Our _life_. I heard what you said to Amy. I know you feel— I know what happened between us was— Not great, but—"

"Not great?" Dvd says, disbelieving. 'He just tried to erase you like five minutes ago.'

"He's sick," David defends. "We're all sick and we're getting help so we can stop being sick. So we can stop hurting our system. Love is what our system needs to heal. I know you want that, I've heard you wanting it, so can we just—"

'I can't forgive myself,' Divad thinks, ashamed. 'You shouldn't forgive me either.'

"You won't even try?" David asks.

"You should understand," Divad says, annoyed. "You of all people— How long did it take you to forgive yourself for what we did to Syd? And that was nothing, it was a fucking _mercy_ , wiping away a few measly hours where she was brainwashed and forced to hurt you." 'God, I wish I could forget everything I did to you.'

'I'm sure not gonna forget,' Dvd mutters.

"You're right," Ptonomy says to Divad. "Forgiveness is difficult and it takes time. Sometimes the hardest thing is forgiving ourselves. But David has made progress in forgiving himself for hurting Syd. Tell me how he did that."

Divad gives David an uncertain glance, then looks back to Ptonomy. "Um. He, uh, accepted what happened. He learned from it, worked through his feelings—" 'What was the last part?'

"He gave himself permission to heal," Ptonomy says. "David, do you think you could have admitted your feelings to Syd if you were still refusing to let yourself heal?"

"Uh, no," David agrees. He still has a ways to go, but— He wants to heal. He wants loving Syd to feel like loving Amy feels. He wants to share the peace of true forgiveness with her, and he wants it with Divad, too.

It still hurts, when he thinks of all the things that went wrong with Syd. He still feels guilty and confused and hurt, but— He loves her and she loves him. What they had, what they could still have together— It's worth the work. It's worth the risk. And Divad is worth the risk, too. 

‘No, I'm not,’ Divad thinks, tightly.

"What's the alternative?" David asks him. "For you to hide in a white room for the rest of our life? I don't want that and neither do you. Whatever you did before— What matters to me is what you're doing now. You're healing our body and keeping me stable so I can heal my mind. You've been helping me sleep and protecting me from nightmares, nightmares Farouk has tortured me with my whole life, and you think I don't have any reason to be grateful to you? To want to get to know you and love you as— As a part of our system, as a part of myself that Farouk took away from me? Farouk took so much from me, he took everything, why would I not want to claw back every scrap I can?"

"So I'm a scrap?" Divad asks, self-effacingly. 

"We're all scraps," David admits. "But they're our scraps. Whatever's left of us, it's ours, not his. Fuck the shit beetle, Divad. I know he's going to hurt us again, but you know what? Let him try." His stomach flips with fear at the challenge, but he keeps going. "We're stronger than him and we always have been." That's what Lenny said. "We don't belong to him, we never did. All we needed was the right help, and that's what we're getting now."

'I want to believe that,' Divad thinks, looking at David with pained, reluctant hope. 

"I know it's hard," David says, gentler. "I know how— Impossible it can feel to hope for ourselves. But I've been letting everyone believe for me and— Now I think— You need to let me believe for you."

Divad looks torn, like he wants to accept David's hope but doesn't feel he should.

"We're all Davids, right?" David asks him. "And Davids are love. Even if you haven't been able to love me the way Dvd does— Even if you hurt me when you're scared— Every act of healing and protection you've given me has been done with love."

"It's just what I'm for," Divad protests. Healing and protecting David is what he was made for. He exists to keep David safe, just like Dvd.

"You're both more than stress responses," David insists. "Davids aren't stress responses, we're people. We're all full, whole people. If you believe that about me, you both have to believe it about yourselves."

Dvd and Divad both look skeptical. But they've believed they were stress responses for their whole lives. It's probably as hard for them to accept themselves as people as it's been for David to accept he's part of a system. 

"I think this is a perfect moment to get back to your foundation," Ptonomy says. "You're all Davids. You're all people. How do the three of you feel about those ideas?"

"It's weird to not be a stress response," Dvd admits. "If anyone should be used to being a person, it's Divad. All this— Being projected and talking to other people— We used to share with David to help him, and we covered for him when he went away, but— I don't know about this whole— 'Living my own life' thing. We're a system, we don't have separate lives. We do everything together."

'Not everything,' Divad thinks, quietly.

"Oh, you wanna lay that down?" Dvd challenges. "You're as jealous of me as the shit beetle but when David tries to love you, you run away and hide. Coward."

"What, all of a sudden you want to share?" Divad challenges back.

"We've always shared," Dvd declares. "Sharing's our _thing._ You're the one who got selfish."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, intervening. "That brings us to the other half of your foundational ideas. This list is a bit longer. 'We share everything. We have healthy multiplicity. We don't stay angry on purpose. We forgive each other. We love each other. We accept each other.' How do you feel about these ideas? Let's start with 'We share everything.'"

"Of course we do," Dvd says. "When David's past all this possession trauma, everything will go back to how it was."

Divad makes a reluctant face, and so does David. 

"Oh, come on!" Dvd says. "You don't seriously want to stay projected all the time?"

"I can't even share our body without being unconscious," David protests. "Even if we can eventually share when I'm awake— I can't see myself being able to tolerate sharing all the time or even wanting to."

"I'm the one who has to do all the work when we're sharing," Divad says. "I like being able to just be me. I want to just be me."

"But sharing's how we work," Dvd says, frustrated.

"You hate me, why would you even want to share with me?" Divad challenges. "Or is it just because _you're_ afraid, _coward_. _Chicken._ "

"Let's avoid any name-calling," Ptonomy says. "And let's discuss what sharing means as a concept. Is it just sharing your body simultaneously?"

"It's everything," Dvd insists. "It's sharing everything."

"But until today, you refused to share your thoughts with David," Ptonomy points out. "So there have always been limits to 'everything.'"

Dvd huffs. "I guess, but— That was to keep David safe. The only thing that mattered was keeping David safe."

"Because you were just a stress response," Ptonomy says. "I'm going to ask you something, Dvd, and I want you to be honest with yourself about your answer. Is a sexual relationship with David right for you? Is that what you want and need?"

'What.' "What kind of stupid question is that?" Dvd protests.

"I'm serious," Ptonomy says. "When you formed that relationship with David, it was under tremendous strain. Your system was isolated and lonely. David's well-being was your only priority, so you gave him what you believed he needed. Was it a mutual relationship for both of you?"

Dvd stammers. "I mean— It was— Of course it was mutual."

"Are you sure?" Ptonomy presses. "Because yesterday, you thought how it was a new experience for you to have David want you. To have him choose you and worry over you."

"Of course David didn't worry over me before," Dvd says. "I was just a stress response."

"But David did worry over you," Ptonomy counters. "He tried to protect you and Divad from the monster. He sacrificed his own well-being to keep the two of you safe from the trauma he endured. I think David always considered both of you to be more than just stress responses. That belief was one that you two took on to protect yourselves."

"I guess," Dvd admits. "But so what?"

"You were only twelve when your mother died," Ptonomy continues. "That was a deeply traumatic event for your whole system, but it sent David into what was likely his first truly self-destructive spiral. Based on the family photos and what Amy has told me, it was also around that time when puberty 'happened' to your system. Your system underwent all of this with Farouk as a constant presence, doing what he's always done, manipulating and torturing your system. And when David got out of control, the two of you imprisoned him in your system's body."

'This is not good,' Divad thinks.

'Shut up,' Dvd thinks back.

"What are you saying?" David asks, concerned. 

"I want to make it clear that this is not about judgement," Ptonomy says. "And I'm not saying that you can't have a healthy sexual and romantic relationship with David now, if that's what's right for both of you. But for that to happen, David needs to know the truth."

"What's the truth?" David asks, looking to Dvd expectantly.

Dvd looks uncomfortable, guilty. David suddenly feels a lot less reassured by Dvd's presence.

"What did you two do to me?" David asks, pulling his hand away from Dvd's.

"You were out of control," Divad tells him. "You were going to get us all killed if we didn't do something. So yeah, we imprisoned you."

"It was just until you calmed down," Dvd defends. "We just had to calm you down."

"And what, sex was how you calmed me down?" David asks, upset.

Dvd looks away, ashamed. 'Please don't hate me.'

"Oh for—" David huffs. "Will you stop doing that?"

"To be fair, it's not like you two stopped after you were back in charge again," Divad says. 

"But that didn't last long," Ptonomy points out. "By the time your system was preparing for college, David was a permanent prisoner. Divad, you've thought many times how Dvd and David's physical relationship made it easier to manage David, to keep him happy while you were in charge full-time. So Dvd, I'm asking you again: was your relationship with David mutual?"

"I've always loved David," Dvd insists, loudly. "And David's always loved me, even if—" He falters. "Look, I gave him what he needed. We couldn't love anyone else, it was too dangerous."

"Was it what he needed?" Ptonomy asks. "Was it what he wanted? What you wanted? You say Farouk is jealous of you. Was he involved?"

David's starting to feel queasy. 

"The monster was always there," Dvd admits. "Of course he was involved, but— It had nothing to do with him."

"Ptonomy," David says, feeling more than a little ill now. 

'I knew this was a bad idea,' Divad thinks. 

"David, do you need to go back in your system's body?" Ptonomy asks, concerned.

"Um, probably a good idea," David admits. He feels faint, which is not a good sign.

"Divad," Ptonomy says. "I'm sorry for cutting your time short, but could you please switch with David?"

"Got it," Divad says. He leans back, then steps out of their body. He takes David's arm and helps him in.

David leans over his knees, taking slow breaths. Kerry gets up and sits on the table and takes his hand. "You're okay," she reassures him. "Just stay with us."

David holds her hand tightly. He feels stupidly grateful to have Kerry. God, at least one person in his life has never—

"I think I need to—" David says, and stumbles up. He makes it to the sink in time, at least. He pants over the mess and turns on the tap, washing down the remains of the congee and yóutiáo. He wanted to taste it before when he watched Divad eating, but not like this. He sticks his mouth under the tap and rinses out, spits.

"David," Dvd pleads, and David turns to see him standing a few feet away, looking heartbroken.

"No," David says, firmly. He is absolutely not ready to be with Dvd right now. He'd thought— He thought he felt—

He doesn't know what he felt. He doesn't know what he feels. His stomach threatens to rebel again just thinking about— 

"Please," David begs, turning away from him.

'David,' Dvd thinks, mournfully. And then angrily: 'Fuck the shit beetle. Fuck him fuck him fuck him.'

"Let's take a break," Ptonomy says. "Divad, Dvd, I'd like you both to put your mental shields back up temporarily."

'Fine by me,' Divad thinks. 

"David?" Amy comes over and touches him lightly on the arm. 

Two people, David thinks. There's two people who haven't—

He pulls Amy into his arms and holds on to her.


	98. Day 11: Simple action and reaction producing madness on demand.

He is David. He survived. He didn't deserve what happened to him. He belongs to himself. _He belongs to himself. Himself._

This, all of this— This is why David didn't want to do anything more than acknowledge his feelings. Why even acknowledging his feelings— 

He wants nothing more than to just— Forgive everyone for everything and move on and just— Be happy. But he can't. He wants to forget and for the things he forgot to not matter, but they absolutely matter. He wants so much to just make all of this horror go away but it's part of him, it's inside him, it's almost all he is after decades of torture and mind games and—

 _NO_ , he writes, underneath his foundation and his mantra and the love advice and his wish list and his therapy list. _I didn't want what happened to me, I didn't ask for it, I didn't deserve it, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO_ —

When he reaches the end of the page, he stops, breathing hard. He feels like there's an endless litany of NOs inside him, like he did when he filled up a whole notebook with NOs, and it would be so easy for him to just keep going and going until he fills this one up, too.

He doesn't want to remember. He doesn't want to think about— 

There's so much he doesn't want to think about. He just wants to make a new foundation for his new system and live and be happy and never remember anything ever again. All remembering ever does is hurt him. Maybe Divad had the right idea. Maybe if he just lost everything, if he was completely erased— 

He'd be like Oliver in his ice cube, unable to remember anything but his own name and some poetry and his jazz records. And sometimes that complete disconnection terrifies David, but sometimes— Sometimes he thinks Oliver had the right idea. If he could just detach from everything, float away and never go back— 

But he doesn't want to lose the good things. Oliver forgot his family, he forgot Melanie, he forgot all the amazing things he did with his life. There's not much in David's life worth remembering. He was tortured for thirty years, how could there ever be anything in his life worth remembering?

But if he forgot Amy— If he lost her like he lost their parents, if— If he had to piece back together a memory of her from scraps and photos and other people's words— 

Losing Amy devastated him. Losing his memories of her—

Except he did. He lost twenty years of real memories of his life with her and Divad and Dvd and Mom and Dad. He lost twenty years of himself and thought a few scraps were enough to live on. That's what Farouk chose for him so that's what David got.

David wants it back. He wants back everything that was taken from him. He wants to remember so much it physically hurts him. But all his memories are is pain. He doesn't know what to do with that, he doesn't— 

He wipes at his eyes and turns the page, starts again. _I am David. I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself. David is love._

That last part never gets any easier to write. It still feels like a lie, a delusion, a cruel joke. David is an amnesiac torture victim whose brain is so fucked that the mental parasite living in his head had to intervene to save him from himself. But the mental parasite only did that so it could do the torturing itself. Because the parasite was jealous that its victim— Because Farouk was jealous. Of Dvd, of Divad? Both?

Both. He can't remember but he knows anyway. Farouk would be just as jealous of someone for hurting David as he is for them loving David. There's no difference between those two things for him. 

God, that makes it all worse. Torture as— Not punishment but some kind of twisted, obsessive love? Or maybe love is just a kind of torture for him. Farouk told him that love was just— A chemical. Electrons in the brain sending signals. Love was a fungus infecting an ant so it could send its spores all over the jungle so it could infect more ants.

He tries not to think about Lenny when he remembers that. He tries to imagine Farouk in the opposite chair, sunglasses and all. But then he remembers not the words but the actions, and it's Farouk grabbing him, hurting him, sitting on his lap and pawing all over him while David sat confused and paralyzed and helpless—

He can't. As bad as it was to have Lenny doing that to him, hurting him and menacing him, as much as it makes it hard for him to look at Lenny and just see her because it wasn't her and it's not fair to her— The truth is worse, it's so much worse. It makes his stomach turn again, but there's already nothing left in him but bile and a few careful sips of water.

He writes out his mantras. _I have the right to say no,_ he writes strongly, but that doesn't feel true either. If he had the right to say no, he would say no to all of this, to everything, to remembering and forgetting, to being broken and healing. He would say no to his entire existence if he could. It's no wonder he gave up when he was a teenager. He must have felt just like he did when he gave up and walked into Clockworks. Inside was where he belonged, and whatever happened to him— It didn't matter, because they were keeping him alive. 

Everyone cares so much about keeping him alive. 

But he doesn't want to just be alive. What's the point of that? Divad might as well wipe his memory completely if being alive is the only thing that matters. Farouk wants him alive, too, they could just hand David over and be done with all of this if alive is the only thing that matters. They could weld the crown to his head and stuff him full of drugs again and leave him to drool in a corner for the rest of his life. 

He doesn't care if he's alive, if he exists. It's the last thing he wants if that's all he can have. He wants to not be sick. He wants to be happy and feel love without— Shame and guilt and confusion. He wants to be whole.

He writes out the love advice, then starts on the wish list, the one Lenny helped him make. It's hard to allow himself to want things, he couldn't have made the list without her helping him. Some of it is just— Frivolous. A chocolate bar, new clothes, a tropical vacation. He wants them, but— The other things—

Stay with his friends. Give back to the world. Be happy. Have good memories.

'Be whole,' he adds, even though he still doesn't know what that truly means or if it's even possible. He'll never be whole in the sense of— Undamaged. He's two trays full of broken ceramic pieces, no amount of glue and paint will undo the fact that he smashed his lamp against the wall. No amount of therapy will undo what happened to him. He has to accept what he is, he has to accept what's happening to him now.

But he wants wholeness anyway. He needs it even more than he needs to remember and forget. 

'Remember,' he adds to the list. He doesn't specify what. Remembering only hurts him, but he still wants to remember. Not knowing his own past, barely knowing his own family, barely knowing himself— Remembering is torture, but not knowing is worse. If he could just remember, even if nothing he remembers is good, at least it would be real. It would be his.

Maybe he should put these into his therapy list. He hasn't written that one many times, he only got it from Syd this morning. But it’s more about— Practical steps. There's nothing practical about a wish list. Wish lists are for dreams. It's been a lot of work to even allow himself to dream, and it's still— 

Frivolous. Unrealistic. It's stupid, wanting things, he's stupid for wanting things, he's so stupid, thinking his life will ever be anything other than what it's always been. What's the point of all of this, it's just rearranging deck chairs, it's just something to pass the time like a crossword puzzle in the back of a magazine, it's—

A shame attack. He's having a shame attack. He rubs his face, takes a sip of his water, breathes. When he has a shame attack he's supposed to love himself, but— 

He's sick. _Sickening_ , that's what that really means. He makes other people sick, he makes himself sick, the things that happened to him were all his fault, he deserved all of it. He's wasting everyone's time, he's ruining their lives, if they didn't have to save him they would be happy—

No. _No._ He's helped people, he stopped the war, he saved people's lives. He's helping Kerry, she keeps telling him he's helping her. He never deserved what happened to him, he was just a baby, it wasn't his fault. _It wasn't his fault._

He puts his hand over his heart. Maybe he still can't love himself, but Kerry loves him. Amy loves him. Syd loves him. There has to be— Something in him worth loving, for them to love him after— After everything. After the things he did, after all his failures, after—

He has to save David. If he wants to be a hero he has to save David. He has to love David. Somehow. Even though there's barely anything left of David to save and nothing worth loving.

Dvd's probably mad at him for thinking that. Everyone's probably mad at him for thinking that. If he was doing anything other than his foundation work, he'd already have an earful. But foundation work is the only time he's allowed now to just be alone with his thoughts. Even though everyone's still listening, they have to let him sit and think and process how he feels.

He feels ashamed. He always feels ashamed, he's the shame onion. He doesn't know why anyone has ever loved him. Maybe he used to know. Farouk took away so much, or— Stunted it. Poisoned the soil, the air. Instead of bright cherry tomatoes, it's a garden full of— Shrivelled plants, barely alive and choked with weeds. 

He wishes he could remember Mom. Really remember her, not just— A glued-together memory. It felt real but it still wasn't real. Even if Ptonomy's right and all memories are creations, constructions— She must have mattered so much to him. If her death broke him, he must have loved her so much.

Like Amy's death. It must have felt like losing Amy, it must have gutted him and spilled him open. Farouk made a cocktail out of Mom and Amy, he was there when Mom died, so he knew exactly what Amy's death would do to David. Losing Mom broke him and sent him into a spiral, so of course losing Amy did the same thing. Inevitable, like gravity. Simple action and reaction producing madness on demand. Farouk knows every single one of his buttons and what pushing them will do.

Farouk was there for everything. And everything is _so much_. 

Nausea distracts him from his shame. He takes another sip of water, breathes slowly. He looks at his notebook, finds where he left off.

He can't add anything else to his wish list, not when he can't even imagine deserving a chocolate bar. So he writes out the therapy list. Accept help from the people who love him. He's doing that. Stop punishing himself? Ridiculous, that's never going to happen. Learn to recognize what he's feeling and to manage his reactions. He's doing better with the first part, at least.

Believe he's worth saving. He's an absolute failure at that one, which is fitting. The entire idea of him being a hero is just— Delusional. 

Build his new self? Out of what? He can't even build a new system. There's three of him and they're all too broken to fit together. It's just another hobby, like trying to get better. Like writing his name, like writing NO over and over, like writing his foundation work and adding to his wish list, all of it is just— Pointless.

He wonders if Farouk still wants to use him to end the world. Does Farouk really hate the world that much? Why? What's the point? What's the point in anything, in getting up every day and doing all this work? How could his life possibly be worth anything to anyone? 

Accept his wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them. Learn acceptance and compassion for himself and others. Learn to trust his own mind. Be more than his shame.

Those shouldn't be on his therapy list, they should be on his wish list. All of this should be there, it's all just— Dreams. Wanting things— It's just showing Farouk exactly what buttons to press, exactly where to put the knife before he jabs it in and twists and guts David all over again.

Farouk was there for everything. Every single moment of David's life, waking or sleeping. Every thought, every feeling— And he didn't just watch, he used that knowledge, he spent decades finding new ways to make David suffer, trying every variation, every combination. And then he made David forget all of it so Farouk could play his favorites all over again. Simple action and reaction, horrific suffering with barely any effort at all, because he always knows exactly what he'll get.

 _NO_ , he writes again, now that he's gone through everything else. _I didn't want what happened to me, I didn't ask for it, I didn't deserve it, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO_. He fills the page and then he keeps going. It feels good to write it, it feels really good.

Maybe there's something under all the layers of shame. Maybe it's just NO. Maybe at the heart of him is just NO, carved in stone. Maybe NO is his foundation. Maybe it should be, because he doesn't want whatever's coming for him, he doesn't want it and it's not his and no matter how much Farouk fucks him up, he doesn't deserve any of it. He _doesn't._

Fuck the shit beetle. Fuck everything Farouk has ever done to him _and_ his system. God, he's just— He's just so _angry_. Is this what Dvd feels like all the time? It feels really good. Maybe he doesn't care if he has the right to say no or not, maybe he can just say it and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks because it's _his_.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out. He's okay. He should write pages full of NO more often. He should make that part of his foundation work. He will.

He looks up, finally. Everyone's studiously ignoring him, trying to give him space even though it's just the illusion of space. Except Syd. Syd can't hear anything he's thinking. Weirdly, that makes him feel like— He wants to tell her. Like— How Kerry not knowing made it easier to talk to her about— Dvd and Benny and— Suddenly not being straight.

He needs to talk to Syd about that, too, obviously they should talk about that even though they're not together. It was nice, sharing therapy with Syd all morning, and then he got another shock and that knocked them away from each other. But Syd came back, she's been here, working on her own foundation, her own therapy, waiting for David to be ready to— Reach out to her again. 

Syd has her notebook out, too. She's writing in it— No, drawing. He stretches to see what it is, and Syd looks up.

"Hey," she says, with small smile. "Done with your foundation work?"

"I think so," David says. He rubs at his face, feeling a little dazed. He looks around again, notices that Kerry is reading one of the autobiographies Ptonomy gave them, that Oliver and Ptonomy are sitting quietly with Divad and Dvd, like they're— Oh, they're having a private session together. That must be why Ptonomy told them to stop sharing their thoughts with him. And probably because David needed some time to himself, god he needed it. And Amy and Lenny are sitting together in the other loveseat, Lenny snuggled up with Amy again for their touch therapy. 

So it's just him and Syd together at the table. He doesn't know if that was intentional or not. Everyone else seems to know what he needs before he does, so it probably is. Everything is part of his therapy, not just sessions but meals and sleep and everything in between. 

He's getting distracted again. He needs to pick what he wants to focus on and focus on it, and right now he wants to focus on Syd.

"What are you drawing?" he asks, still curious.

"Ah, you again, sort of," Syd admits. She slides over her notebook. "It's Divad."

David takes the notebook, looks at the drawing. He looks at Divad, sitting quietly on the sofa as he has a telepathic session. It's strange, having this— Evidence of his existence, that he's a solid, real person to someone other than David. Even though Syd can't see Divad right now, when he's projected from their body. The body David’s in. "It's a good likeness."

"I've got a lot of practice drawing your system," Syd says, fondly. "But I wanted to— Capture the differences. You're very different."

"Are we?" David asks. He's been focused on their similarities, the ways they connect. The parts that match. He looks at the drawing again. Syd's sketches of him are always— Alive, somehow. Like she's trying to draw not just what he looks like, but who he is.

Syd came back and sat with Divad and Amy while David was up in the loft. And then she was with him for their meal and then she watched the session, until— So she had a lot of time to watch him, study him. And she had yesterday, too, until David had another shock and— No, focus. 

"What do you, um, think of him?" David asks.

"Well," Syd starts, then thinks. "He's very— Most of the time he's very calm. In control. From what I've seen, control is very important to him. And he's watchful. Cautious. Distant."

David looks at Divad's posture, his expression, looks at him in the drawing. He sees what Syd said, the way Divad holds himself, the way his brow is slightly furrowed, the set of his jaw. But his eyes—

"And vulnerable?" he asks.

"He doesn't want to show it, but it's there," Syd says. "It's funny, but— I think I see a lot of myself in him."

"Really?" David asks, surprised. It was Dvd who reminded him of Syd, but—

Syd nods. "I've always— Held myself apart. Because I had to, physically. And to protect myself." She pauses. "I used to draw the people who came to my Mom's salons. It let me get close enough to— Study them. Understand them, without— Letting them too close. It made things easier. They loved it, they were all so vain. No one tries to— Touch you when you're drawing, or talk to you. They give you space to work."

David remembers teenaged Syd screaming when someone touched her shoulder. The commotion, the attention— She must have hated those parties, all those people close together, every casual brush of someone's arm putting needles under her skin.

"It was how you survived," David realizes.

"It helped in Clockworks, too," Syd says. "When people know you're drawing them, they slow down. They pose. It's like— Taking a very slow photograph. No one wants to look bad."

A thought occurs to David. "Is that why you drew me? To, um, slow me down?" He never tried to touch Syd after that first accidental bump, he always did his best to respect the space she needed. He never wanted to hurt her or upset her.

"Maybe at first," Syd admits. "But mostly— It was to understand you. You weren't like anyone I'd ever met."

"You didn't know the half of it," David jokes.

"We really didn't," Syd agrees, earnestly. "But, um. Even just— No powers, no system. Just as a person— I drew you to understand— Why I fell in love with you."

David stares at her. He thinks about his foundation work and how impossible it feels for him to love himself. How he's thought that— If he didn't have any powers, he wouldn't be worth anything to anyone. If he didn't have any powers—

"Did you figure it out?" he asks, feeling— Suspended.

Syd holds him with her eyes. "I think so. I saw that you were— Fragile. I saw your pain. But you didn't let it eat you whole. It wasn't sensible, all that love and hope— But I liked it. I needed it."

David pulls in on himself, feeling— A tumult of things. "That wasn't me, it was just— What he made."

"No," Syd says, like she knows. "Farouk wouldn't know real love if it clubbed him across the face. Whatever he did to you, he didn't put those things in you. They're what he couldn't take away."

David stares at her again. "You can't know that."

Syd shrugs. "Why is anyone the way they are? I've been so many people. And even if my powers protected me— I know we're more than our bodies. That love and hope I've always seen in you, that comes from your soul. That's why I fell in love with you, and— That's why you're you. Why you've always been you and you always will be."

"You can't just say that," David insists.

"I just did," Syd says, amused.

David leans back, at a loss. "I hurt you," he says, desperate to refute her.

"You did," Syd says, sobering. "Even love and hope can make us do— Terrible things. I know you haven't had a chance yet to work through what I did to you, but— I hope that— When you're ready—" She looks painfully vulnerable, more than David's ever seen her. "Maybe you'll be able to see— What's in my soul."

She looks away, overcome. It must have taken so much for her to say all that. 

"Syd," David starts, overcome himself. What should he say? He doesn't know what to say. But she looks like she wants to run off again and he doesn't want her to leave. He looks down at her notebook. The sketch. "Um, when you're done drawing Divad— Could I have it?"

Syd eases, quietly pleased. "Of course. I was thinking— I'd draw one of Dvd too, when it's his turn?"

Even though it hurts to think of Dvd now, David wants that. He wants to see Dvd through her eyes. "I'd like that," he says, giving her a smile. "And maybe— You could do one of me. Awake this time." He'd forgot about the sketch she did of him sleeping. Thinking back, that helped him accept that Divad and Dvd are parts of him, that they're a system. As difficult as things are, he's grateful to her for that. He's grateful to her for a lot of things.

"I'm not, um, much of an artist," David says. Farouk made him think he was in the fake Clockworks, made him a painter as well as manic depressive. But none of those things were real. "And I'm not exactly great at— Understanding anything, but— Everything about you— Has always been, um— Beautiful. To me." 

He's the one who looks away then, overcome again. When he glances back, Syd has tears in her eyes. She wipes them away, but they were there. Nothing can undo the fact that— He made her feel so loved it brought tears to her eyes. 

He puts his hand over his heart and wonders.


	99. Day 11: I am Dvd. I survived.

The only thing worse than hearing David think awful things about himself is hearing him think awful things about Dvd. It's David thinking that Dvd would— That he'd ever do anything to hurt David. _Dvd would never do anything to hurt David, ever._

It looks bad. Dvd knows it looks bad, of course it does. The shit beetle is an expert at making everything look bad, twisting everything out of shape, ruining everything. Dvd just did what he had to do so they could survive, so David could survive and recover and make it through another long day. Maybe Dvd should go over and tell David that, he needs David to understand that it wasn't— 

He was just a stress response. He existed to protect David, that was all. He wasn't a person, he wasn't his brother, he wasn't— He isn't some monster invading their body, abusing it, he's not the shit beetle, he's _Dvd_. They're a system, there's no— There's no boundaries in their system so it's impossible to break them. It's just impossible.

David's the one who's confused, who's got it all wrong. The shit beetle tricked him into thinking he's a separate person and now he's full of all these separate people ideas. He forgot how they work and if he could just remember, everything would be fine, there wouldn't be all this confusion and David wouldn't think—

Dvd rubs at his eyes, angry at everything and everyone but especially at the shit beetle, he's furious, if it wasn't for that stupid crown he'd teleport them right to that asshole and turn him into a pile of dust like they should have the second they got to that club. They shouldn't have hung back for weeks, letting David be in charge. Dvd was the one who insisted they let David stay in charge but they should have known David was too full of delusions to handle anything. 

Dvd glances at Divad, glad he has his mental shield back up so Divad can't hear his thoughts either. Divad would be so fucking smug if he'd heard that thought. He'd rub Dvd's nose in it forever.

But shit, his shield can't block the relay. Fuck the crown, _fuck it_.

"Dvd, please sit back down," Ptonomy says, gesturing to the sofa.

"Fine," Dvd mutters. He sits back down with a huff and crosses his arms. Stupid therapy, all it's doing is making David worse, making him upset and angry and—

"David will be fine," Ptonomy says, calmly. "But he needs time to process his feelings. We need to give him that. So we're going to continue, but we're going to do it through the relay." 'Okay?'

'Fine by me,' Divad thinks again. 'We should have all our sessions through the relay.'

'That wouldn't be fair to David,' Ptonomy says. 'Or to Dvd. Your system needs honesty to heal.'

Ptonomy calls this healing? Dvd glares at him. Maybe Ptonomy's just like everyone else after all. 

'I know you're upset, Dvd,' Ptonomy says. 'I know this is painful for you. But David needs the truth, all of it, before your relationship goes any further.'

Their relationship isn't going anywhere, Dvd thinks, not anymore. David will never love him now. It hurts so much, even though Dvd's trying to be too angry to hurt. David is the only thing that's ever mattered, this is a disaster.

'It would have been a much worse disaster if David had found out about this later,' Ptonomy tells him. 'Or if Farouk had been the one to tell him.'

Dvd freezes, the thought like ice in his veins. Maybe Ptonomy has a point. Fuck the shit beetle, that would have been— Bad. Worse than bad.

'That's why we're doing this now,' Ptonomy tells him. 'Your system needs to work through what's happened to it so Farouk can't use it against you. All three of you have our support so none of you are dealing with this alone. So let's pick up where we left off. Dvd, let's go back. What happened first? Your mom's death or puberty?'

Way to ask the small questions, Dvd thinks. This is system stuff, as private as private can get.

'Except it was never private,' Ptonomy points out. 'Farouk invaded your system's body when you were a baby, and David was aware of the monster's presence even before he became a system. Your system has never been alone. That must have had a tremendous effect on you.'

Of course it did, Dvd thinks, dismissive. So what?

'We all adapt in response to our environment,' Ptonomy says. 'That's true of every living thing. We adapt in order to survive, but what helps us survive can also be harmful to us. Your system was never alone. Your body was constantly being violated and terrorized, your fears and hopes used against you. And even though you two were able to shield your thoughts, David couldn't, which meant you had no choice but to hear his thoughts. Without the context of external telepathy, his thoughts must have felt like your own.'

Dvd looks at Divad. 

'They do,' Divad admits. 'But we knew they were his thoughts.'

'If you came into existence in an environment where you always heard someone else's thoughts as your own, it would be natural to see yourself as part of them,' Ptonomy tells them. 'Both of you always had David's thoughts as part of you. That reinforced your understanding of yourselves.'

But they are parts of David, Dvd thinks, insistent. They're a system, they're Davids, of course they're parts of David.

'He's right,' Divad thinks. 

'Up to a point,' Ptonomy says. 'One of the reasons I want you to read about other systems is so you can see how unique your system is. In most systems, each member sees themself as an individual. They often aren't even aware of other members of their system. It's still common for there to be a main member, someone who does most of the work of fronting or being in charge, but the other members don't usually see themselves as a mere extension of the main member.'

So what, Dvd asks. They're freaks among the freaks? They're used to that.

'This isn't about judgement,' Ptonomy reminds them. 'My point is that this behavior is part of a larger pattern. It's vital that we understand that pattern and all the ways it affects your system. We need to understand what Farouk already knows. We're playing catch-up. We can't afford denial, no matter how uncomfortable it is to discuss these things.'

He pauses to let that sink in.

'I understand,' Divad thinks. 'Puberty happened first, but— Mom was always sick. The last few years— She, um—' He takes a shaky breath. 'She died very slowly.'

'I'm sorry,' Ptonomy says, gently. 'I know you loved her very much.'

Divad nods and wipes at his eyes. 

'So your mom's death was more like the presence of the monster,' Ptonomy says. 'Something you were unable to escape, something that was part of you as long as you could remember.'

Divad nods again. 'Mom loved us so much,' he thinks, grieving. 'Like she wanted to fill us up with so much love— We would never lose it. Even—' He stops again, wipes at his eyes. 

'That's a pattern, too,' Ptonomy point out, still gentle. 'Intense love in the face of trauma. That's how your whole family loves each other, and how David loves other people. It's how you love David, Dvd.'

Dvd looks at Ptonomy, surprised. He thought— He thought Ptonomy—

'You thought I was trying to take David away from you?' Ptonomy asks. 'Nothing will ever take David away from your system again. But your relationship needs to be healthy for both of you. So let's continue. Your system grew up with no sense of privacy. That, along with always hearing David's thoughts, meant your system never developed a true sense of individuality or boundaries. As you said, puberty happened to you as a system.'

It did. They weren't separate people, and they shared all the time, so— They experienced everything together.

'Sharing all the time helped David feel safe,' Ptonomy says. 'It also made you feel even more like you were parts of David, since your system prioritized David's choices and needs. The outside world was a source of trauma, just like David's telepathy. So that's why even when the two of you were in charge, you insisted you were only covering for David. That allowed you to dissociate from what was happening to you.'

'I guess we do that a lot,' Divad admits.

'Dissociation is your system's primary survival mechanism,' Ptonomy replies. 'Both in the fundamental structure of your system and in how you individually cope. But I think all that sharing had an effect on you, Divad. If I understand correctly, you would receive David and Dvd's neural signals and unify them with your own. That means that even though the three of you gave preference to David's neural signals, Divad was actually the one who was in charge of your body most of the time. But Divad, you were in charge without autonomy, without control.'

'Yeah,' Divad says. 'It was David's life, but— He lived it through me.'

'And that was okay if you were just a stress response,' Ptonomy offers. 'But you were never just a stress response. And being forced to sacrifice your sense of self to that degree must have been very hard for you. Is that what made you angry at David?'

'I don't know,' Divad admits. 'Maybe, I— I never thought about— It was just how we worked.'

'Farouk would put David into a position where he had to make a choice, and his choice was always going to be wrong,' Ptonomy says. 'But even if David made the decision, you were the one who had to actually carry it out. Even if you were dissociating from how you felt, I think on some level you were angry at David for making you share the burden of his torture. Not being David was supposed to protect you from the monster, but sharing destroyed that protection. Yet you still felt you had no right to abandon David or make decisions on your own behalf. It's very understandable that you would resent David for all of that, and that your attempts to help him would become abusive.'

Dvd stares at Divad. Was all that true? 

Divad wipes at his eyes again. 'It's true,' he thinks, shocked. 'God, it's— It was such a relief when we stopped sharing. I just thought— It was because David wouldn't be able to ruin things anymore, but— Being in charge, just me being in charge— I told myself I was still just covering for David but— I wasn't. And it felt so good.'

'You were reclaiming your sense of yourself as an individual person,' Ptonomy tells Divad. 'Making choices for yourself and carrying them out on your own. That must have felt incredibly freeing.'

'It did,' Divad admits. 'And the monster left us alone— And I had Amy and classes and— I had a life. It was _mine_.'

One Divad stole, Dvd grumbles.

'David stole mine first,' Divad shoots back.

'David didn't steal your life,' Ptonomy corrects. 'Farouk did. He made the choice to invade David and torture him until he became the three of you, and continued to assault your system so that you needed such desperate measures. Remember, all of this happened when you were children. You did the best you could to survive a terrible situation, but David's right. The choices you made were the choices of traumatized children, traumatized teenagers who were being continually manipulated and tortured. It's important to recognize that healthy decisions were practically impossible for any of you in that situation. It wasn't your fault, but if you want things to be better, you have to change.'

Maybe Divad and David have to change, but Dvd doesn't. 

Divad snorts. 'You are completely delusional.'

Dvd is the only one who held himself together when everyone else was falling apart. When David was a broken wreck and Divad was being selfish, Dvd held everything together. He's the only one who never forgot how they worked.

'Ptonomy just told us the way we worked was stupid,' Divad thinks, smugly. 'That means you're the stupid one for holding on to it.'

'Divad,' Ptonomy warns. 'That is not what I said. And you and Dvd have just as much work to do with each other as you do with David. If you can't make peace with each other, your system will never heal. Every time you fight, you know what that does to David.'

It makes David upset. It makes him despair.

'It made him so upset he destroyed our bedroom,' Divad adds, unhappily.

'I know you've both suffered greatly,' Ptonomy says. 'But a divided system is what Farouk wants. I'm sure he's done many things to set you against each other. But that's what Farouk does to people who threaten him. If you heal your relationship, Farouk can't get between you anymore. Isn't that worth the work?'

It is, but— Dvd can't trust Divad. All of this is proof that Divad can't be trusted because he'll always choose himself over their system.

'It's not selfish to have boundaries,' Ptonomy tells him. 'Your system needs healthy multiplicity, it needs to be respectful of the needs of all its members. That includes you, Dvd. You're just as much an individual as Divad and David. You're more than just a stress response, more than just what David needs.'

No, Dvd thinks, firmly. All this separateness, that's the delusion. David thinking he's a separate person is what's ruining everything. 

Ptonomy pauses, considering. 'Then you think David was happy with the way things were before?'

Dvd hesitates. It's not like any of them were ever happy. But— They had each other, they loved each other and protected each other and did everything together. And if David had bad thoughts, Dvd helped them go away. He wasn't like Divad, always criticizing and making David upset. Dvd made David better and he didn't need any stupid healing powers to do it.

'Tell me about that,' Ptonomy says. 'How did you make David's 'bad thoughts' go away? What kind of bad thoughts did he have?'

The kind David always has, Dvd thinks, unhappily. David was already broken when he made them, when— When the three of them were made from him, whatever. David was already—

'He already hated himself,' Ptonomy says, gently. 'He was already ashamed. Was he already suicidal?'

Dvd looks over at David, sitting at the table with his notebook. He's upset, and when he's upset— It's Dvd's job to help him feel better. But Dvd can't comfort him now, not when he's the reason David's upset. Everything's so wrong.

'It's a very painful thing, to think about a child so young already wanting to die,' Ptonomy says. 'But it happens. David was very lucky to have you to help him fight those feelings. But that was a terrible burden for another child to have to bear. You, Dvd, didn't want to die. But you had David's thoughts in your head. The only way to make the thoughts stop was to make David feel better. It was to keep him away from all the things that made those thoughts happen. So inside your body, you protected him from the monster and from Divad as best you could.'

Dvd did, of course he did. He would have done even more if he could, but he couldn't make Divad stop, he couldn't get rid of the monster. He wasn't strong enough.

'But the inside of your body wasn't the only source of trauma,' Ptonomy continues. 'We already know David's telepathy was traumatic for your system. But so was the physical world. Your misdiagnosis, your mom's illness— David being in the world made him worse. So consciously or not, you did whatever it took to keep David away from the world. You encouraged David to isolate your system, to stay away from other people. But to keep that isolation from making him worse, you had to be everything he needed. And when puberty happened, when David's sexual needs became a reality, I think you did what you always have.'

All Dvd ever did was make David feel better. That was all! And he always knew exactly what made David feel better because he could hear it. 

'I'm sure you could,' Ptonomy agrees. 'But nowhere in that do I see you asking David what he wanted. Nowhere in that do I see you asking yourself what you wanted. You did what you felt was necessary. How did David feel about all of this?'

Dvd refuses to answer that. It's a stupid question, it doesn't deserve an answer.

'He accepted it,' Divad admits. 'He accepted everything we did to him, because— He knew our situation was his fault, he was so ashamed, and— We knew what was best for him.'

'That was your workaround,' Ptonomy says. 'It had to be David's life so all the bad things would only happen to him. But it was your life, too, both of you. And the only way to regain control over your life was to control David, to make him give you what you needed. And the end result of that was sexual and emotional abuse and imprisonment.'

Fuck you, Dvd thinks, furious. They're not the shit beetle!

'But he taught us,' Divad thinks, miserably. 'He tortured us until we were like him. He used our love for David against us, he made us do things—'

'That's what he does,' Ptonomy agrees, soberly. 'David will understand that. You've all been victims for a very long time. But we can help you become survivors so one day you can all thrive together.'

'How?' Divad asks. 'I don't— I don't want to be this way anymore.'

'You need what your system never had the chance to have,' Ptonomy says. 'You need boundaries. Not just David, but all of you. You need to rebuild yourselves just like David is doing, and develop healthy ways of relating to yourselves and each other and the world.'

'I want that,' Divad thinks.

Dvd thinks this is all bullshit.

'Denial won't protect you from the truth,' Ptonomy warns him. 'We're having this discussion privately so you two have the chance to tell David yourselves. He deserves your honesty and you deserve the chance to be honest with him and yourselves. But this situation is the same as with the relay. If you refuse to tell David, if you refuse to open up to him with honesty and respect, it will be done on your behalf. If we don't, Farouk will do it for us, and he'll make sure to put all of this in the worst possible light. None of us wants that to happen.'

'We'll tell him,' Divad promises, looking over at David. 'Should we do it now?'

'Not yet,' Ptonomy says. 'David needs time to process what he's already learned. You know how David works. He might be ready later today, but it could take longer. David's pushing himself very hard already, if we put all this on him now, it'll be too much. We don't want a repeat of yesterday.'

'We really don't,' Divad agrees.

Yesterday was awful, Dvd thinks. David almost going away and then passing out, Dvd was so scared for him—

'Both of you love David very much,' Ptonomy says. 'I don't think either of you ever wanted to hurt him, but you were both unable to acknowledge your own suffering. You dissociated from it and denied it, but all that did was put the suffering in control. It put your anger and frustration in control. It put Farouk in control. If you want to take control back from Farouk, the way to that is through trust, honesty, and respect, for yourselves and each other.'

'Like David,' Divad thinks.

'Exactly,' Ptonomy says, pleased. 'I know David offered to share his notebook with you, Divad. But each of you needs your own notebook, in addition to your system notebook. Just like David has. We're going to get started on them now. Please each make your own personal mental notebook, and I've set aside two notebooks for you to use while you're embodied.'

Divad makes his immediately, the teacher's pet that he is. Dvd doesn't.

'Dvd?' Ptonomy prompts.

Dvd doesn't need a stupid notebook. He doesn't need to rebuild himself, he doesn't need boundaries. He needs David back. He needs David to love him. They can't— Being together is all they have. David is all he has. He survived ten years of being trapped in their body so they could be together again. They were going to go to some stupid farm but Dvd didn't care as long they were alone together, where no one would hate them or judge them or hurt them or make them take medication— They were just going to be happy together. That's all Dvd ever wanted, he just wanted them to be happy together and for all the bad things to be far away.

But David loved Syd too much to leave. He loves Syd so much. It kills Dvd every time he hears David loving Syd, it makes him want to cut out their heart and turn it to dust so he doesn't have to feel it anymore.

He wanted David to love him that way, he wanted it so much. But the shit beetle ruined everything. David only loved him at all because he thought Dvd kept him safe, but— He failed. He's such a failure, how's he worth anything to David if he's a monster, if he did monstrous things to him— David will hate him forever, he'll never forgive him, he shouldn't—

'Dvd,' Divad thinks, reaching out to him.

Dvd bets Divad is loving this, he must be having a great time watching Dvd realize what a hideous monster he is. It must be everything he ever wanted, finally having the tables turned. Now he can punish Dvd the way he's always wanted to, just like he punishes David. Maybe that's how they were supposed to work. Maybe if Divad punishes Dvd he'll finally leave David alone. And then David will be happy with Syd and— Kerry and— He'll have the world that they took away from him and— They'll just— They can go to the bedroom and— Divad can punish Dvd all he wants and Dvd won't fight back anymore. He doesn't deserve to fight back, Divad was right all along, he's the selfish one, he's been so awful—

'Dvd, please,' Divad thinks. He puts a hand on Dvd's arm. 'I don't want that and you don't deserve it. Our system has suffered enough.'

It's not enough, Dvd thinks. What he did to David— No punishment could ever be enough. Dvd's the one who should get his memory wiped. If Dvd can't remember— Then David won't have to remember.

'That's not how this works,' Ptonomy says. 'David needs to remember because that's what's right for him. And you need to do what's right for yourself. That's what personal boundaries are about. Yes, as a system you'll have to learn to balance those needs, but you can't be healthy as a system until you've made progress being healthy as individuals. That's true of all relationships. The good part about that is that if we help each other get better as individuals, that will go a long way to healing our relationships and making them strong.'

Dvd rubs his eyes. That makes sense, but— When David finds out— 

'He'll be upset,' Ptonomy allows. 'Just like Syd was upset after she got her memories back. But she worked through her feelings and accepted that she also needs help, and now her relationship with David is starting to heal.'

But David doesn't love Dvd the way he loves Syd, Dvd thinks. He can't remember anything and what he does have— David won't want him. He can't.

'I think you've forgotten something,' Ptonomy says. 'David's feelings for you. They're new, yes, but— I think the reason they feel familiar to David is because he had feelings for you before. He loved you, he saw you as more than just a stress response. He wanted to protect you. I think the reason he accepted what you gave him was because he wanted you, but he didn't feel like he deserved anything more.'

Ptonomy can't know that, Dvd protests.

'It's an educated guess,' Ptonomy admits. 'But maybe Divad knows. Why don't you ask him?'

Dvd looks to Divad, uncertain. 

'Why do you think I was always so jealous?' Divad asks, a little sadly. 'Of course he loved you. I was the one who pushed him away, who was cruel to him— Maybe you gave him what he needed and not what he wanted, but— God, we were traumatized kids, we can't— Torture ourselves when being tortured is what got us here in the first place. We have to forgive our system, all of it, for everything. We have to do what Ptonomy's saying and rebuild ourselves so our new system isn't full of the shit beetle's poison the way our old one was.'

Dvd doubts that's even possible.

'We have to try,' Divad insists. 'None of us can leave. We're not separate people, we're a system. We're all Davids. However we hurt each other, it's all the same. We share everything, we have to share forgiveness and love.'

Those were David's words. Divad shouldn't think any of that unless he really means it.

'I'm trying to mean it,' Divad thinks. 'I want the pain to stop, just like you do. That's all any of us has ever wanted, for the pain to stop. You told me that the only way we would stop hurting each other was if we got help. You were right, and— Even if half the time we take one step forward and five back— Somehow we're still moving in the right direction. Mostly because of David. We've been making him do all the work and that's not fair, like it wasn't fair to make him take all the torture. If we want a healthy system, we have to share. And sharing's what we do, right?' 

Dvd thinks Divad's playing dirty, using Dvd's own words against him. Low down and mean dirty.

'So that's a yes?' Divad prompts.

Ugh, it's a yes, Dvd grumbles. They'll do the stupid personal notebooks, _fine_. But it better work. If they do all this work and David hates him— Dvd will personally end the world himself.

'Uh huh,' Divad thinks, not impressed.

Dvd glares at him and makes a new notebook. He opens to the first page and looks to Ptonomy. So tell them what to do already.

'We'll keep it simple to start,' Ptonomy says. 'I'd like both of you to copy David's foundation work and his mantras, replacing his name with your own. Then add the relationship advice that's already in your system foundation work. You can leave the wish list empty for now, but start thinking about what you want to fill it with. And for the therapy list, I'd like you each to do what David did and make that your own. You've been watching David through all of this, so you should have a good sense of how this works. Talk to each other if you need help, and if you're stuck on something you can ask for help. But you need to make all of this your own for it to have as much impact as it does for David. Change anything you need to change. Add a new section if you need one. Whatever you feel will help you be the person you want to be, put it in your foundation.'

'Okay,' Divad thinks, sounding determined. He starts writing.

Dvd stares at the blank page. Are they really going to do this? It looks like they are. 

'Dvd's Foundation' he writes on the first line, and underlines it like David does. His handwriting still feels clumsy, and it's always been the worst of the three of them. He could pretend to write like David, but— That doesn't feel like something he should do for this.

His own foundation. For himself, for Dvd. Dvd— Haller? It's really weird to think of himself as Dvd Haller, but— if Divad and David get a last name, he should get one, too.

He crosses out the first line and starts again.

_Dvd Haller's Foundation_

He considers it, then underlines it. And then he writes:

_I am Dvd. I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself. Dvd is love._


	100. Day 11: I am Divad. I survived.

_I am Divad. I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself. Divad is love._

Divad has been listening to David telling himself his foundation and mantras over and over for days. He's watched David wrestle with the ideas in them, praise and curse them, deny them and embrace them. Every day his foundation work has expanded, in small changes and big leaps, David navigating the rough ocean of his therapy like a sailor desperate for the slightest catch of a helpful wind.

David's foundation work might be full of other people's ideas, but he's done the work from the start and he keeps pushing on no matter how many times he's been knocked down. No matter how many shocks he gets, no matter how painful the revelation, David refuses to give up. He picks himself back up and clings to what helps him and keeps going. 

Ptonomy said their system needs to stop being victims and start being survivors, but Divad thinks Ptonomy was wrong about that. David is already a survivor. 

And now, faced with the same challenge of recovery, trying to build a new foundation for himself, Divad feels ashamed. He always told himself that the terrible things that happened to them were David's fault, that if David had just made better decisions, if he'd just—

But David has always made the best decisions he could. He's always been fighting with everything he has to heal, to be a good person, to stay alive, to love— Farouk might have used the mental health system to torture David, but David still embraced the lessons in it, especially after Farouk made him forget everything. David learned anxiety management, he learned mantras, he learned to open up and share his feelings, he learned so many things, but none of those tools could compete with the monster in their head, sabotaging every action and thought, making every scrap of hope feel futile. 

But now the monster is out, and David— 

It's been hard to see it, in the moment, while Divad struggled with his own trauma, his own anger and shame and regret, but— David is _so strong_. He's come so far in so little time. They thought suffering was what David was for, but they were wrong. _Healing_ is what David is for. It always has been. It was just— Hard to see that when the pain was so overwhelming, when it never stopped coming at them from every direction. They were drowning in that ocean, what did it matter how hard David kicked towards the surface when they were a thousand feet under?

A few days ago, Syd asked them how they kept David David. She wanted to know how he could endure everything he suffered and still be himself, but Divad didn't have an answer to that and neither did Dvd. They just knew that somehow, no matter what the monster did to them, David was still David. He's always been David.

And Divad? Who is he? If he's not just a stress response, if he's not just the alter who stole David's life, if he's not just— A way for David to survive—

He wasn't even that. He wasn't helping David survive, he was making him worse. He was weighing them down when David was trying to carry them up. Dvd knew it, he said it over and over, so many times that Divad stopped listening. Looking back— Did they ever let David make a real choice on his own? They said it was his life but they told him how to live it, they were in charge of _him_. They always knew what was best for him, they told him that over and over, so many times that David just accepted it. Because that's what David did. He believed he deserved his own suffering, so if there was anything he could do for them, any way he could help them, save them—

Anyone could build a better system than three traumatized children who were being tortured by a monster. When Divad heard David think that— 

It was Dvd who gave the idea to David. Dvd, of all people! Anyone could do a better job fixing their lamp than an escaped mental patient weaning himself off an insane amount of Haldol. But David didn't just accept that idea, he made it his own, he saw that— Their system was the same as their lamp. David was shattered and then the three of them tried to tape themselves back together the best they could. But they didn't know what they were doing. They didn't have the help they needed, the tools they needed to actually figure out how to work together in a healthy way. 

It was like Ptonomy said, healthy decisions were impossible for them while there was a monster in their head. If anything seemed to help, they did it and kept doing it even if it hurt them, because they didn't know the difference between helping and hurting. Farouk made sure of that. He made good things bad and bad things good, he tricked and confused them— 

He was their world. They all accepted what he told them. They were in charge of David, but the monster was in charge of all of them. _The monster stole their life._

Divad wants it back. He's so angry, not at David or himself but at Farouk, at the shit beetle who actually did ruin everything. Is this what Dvd feels like all the time? It feels really good. 

_There are things I lost that I’ll never get back. But I’m here and I’m not alone._

David mostly thinks about his memories when he thinks of that. Divad doesn't think he's forgotten very much, but he knows Dvd remembers things he doesn't. Not that they've ever wanted to talk about what they remember. Not that they've even wanted to talk to each other. All the two of them had was each other for ten long years, but they couldn't stand each other. They've always fought over David, over whose fault things were, over who should be in charge and who should help David and what helping even meant. For ten years they sniped at each other endlessly, because that was the only thing they had left after Farouk ripped everything away from them. Things were bad between them before, but once David was gone—

Once David was gone, there was no reason to play nice anymore. They ripped each other to shreds. The tussles they had that upset David so much? They were nothing compared to what happened during those ten years. They were both furious and heartbroken and helpless and the only thing they could actually do was hurt each other, so they did. And the worst part was that they knew how much the monster loved every minute of it, but they still couldn't stop themselves.

_I’m loved and there’s no shame in love._

This one’s hard to write. Writing 'Divad is love'— That just feels— Abstract, like most of his new foundation. He feels no connection to that idea at all. But he let Amy in, and Amy helped him see that he needs to let David in, and— 

Divad wants to be loved. He's been starving to be loved, but no one inside or outside his system could ever love him. Or that's what he thought. Amy says she loves him, she loves Divad, that all the years he was pretending to be David are theirs now, that the love that was meant for David is Divad's. But it's so new and strange and— Divad isn't sure he can believe it. 

He wants it to be real. He wants David to love him, even though Divad hurt him so much. But Divad doesn't want David's forgiveness if it's just— Because David feels like he deserved to be hurt. That would poison everything, just like it did before. If there's no shame in love— Then a love based on shame isn't love at all.

_I’m strong enough to heal._

Divad always thought he was. Even though Dvd's the most powerful of them, Divad always thought he was the one with the strongest mind, the clearest sense of right and wrong, that he was able to resist the monster's manipulations. But he was as wrong as it’s physically possible to be. So even though he's writing the words, they feel like more than a lie, they feel like a joke. He's just weak.

_I'm not doing this alone._

This one, at least, is true in the most literal sense. Dvd is beside him, chewing the end of his pen as he mulls over the same words for himself. And Divad does have Amy. They have Ptonomy helping them, they have— All of David's friends. Even Lenny and Syd. Even if they're all only helping Divad because of David— 

Divad wants their life back, so he'll take all the help he can get so they can stop the monster once and for all. He was so close to that in college, he could feel it, but— None of what he learned matters anymore because Farouk isn't physically inside of them. He's an outside problem, not an inside one. So all those years of studying, all that knowledge— It doesn't matter because Syd got Farouk out of them with a kiss. Divad isn't sure if he's more annoyed or grateful to her for that, but what matters is that Farouk is out. It matters so much.

_I don’t have to hurt David and I never did._

Even though this idea was adapted into their system mantra, Divad puts it into his own. It's probably the idea that's helped him the most so far, and he's trying so hard to believe it. It's getting easier, the need to hurt David growing weaker the more he looks back at their life with a new perspective. Ptonomy was completely right: they did dissociate from their individuality, from their feelings and trauma. They put all the responsibility for their life on David, by only seeing themselves as stress responses, as parts of him there only to protect him. And then they controlled him to control themselves, and that— That was an astoundingly bad idea, an astronomically bad idea to base their whole system on. _Shit._ Anyone could have seen that if they'd just— Told someone what was happening to them. But they didn't. They couldn't.

_I'm not going to be forgotten._

Those words brought tears to his eyes when Ptonomy told them to him, and Amy— 

He can barely bring himself to face all the feelings behind this. Not just being trapped and unheard for ten years, but everything about— Pretending to be David. Negating his own sense of self to hide, to share, to protect David— 

He wants to be known. He wants people to know him, to talk to him and hear him, to smile at his presence. He wants to be welcomed and accepted and useful and— He wants so much, there's so much in those six words that it threatens to overwhelm him just writing them.

He just wants to be himself, to be a person in the world, and for that to be— A good thing. He wants it so much. 

He leaves some space for the relationship advice and skips ahead to his wish list. _I want to be me_ , he writes, and then on the next line, _I want to be useful_ and then _I want to have friends_ and then _I want to work with Cary_ and then _I want to go back to college as myself_ and then _I want a degree with Divad Haller on it_ and then—

He stops, shaking from— _Relief_. He feels like he could go on and on forever with all the things he wants, but it's already so much. And they're all things just for him, no one else. Not David things, not system things, but Divad things. Divad Haller things for Divad Haller. 

It's not selfish to have boundaries. Ptonomy said that. It's not selfish to have his own needs, his own wants, his own dreams. It's healthy. They need healthy ideas and Ptonomy said this one is very healthy. Dvd can snarl all he wants, he's still wrong. It's not enough just to be a system, it's not enough do to everything for David, and it's not good for David or them or their system to do that!

If Divad didn't feel humbled by how much work he needs to do on himself, he'd be very smug about that at Dvd. But he doesn't have the energy to waste on being smug. David is so far ahead of them and they have to catch up.

He writes out the relationship advice, the love advice as David calls it. Divad's already thought about it in the context of their system, but now he's looking at it for himself. There's so many healthy ideas packed into just a few simple lines, about love and openness and self-defense and self-respect. And Ptonomy said it was the same love for all of them, for them as individuals and their system and the outside world and everyone in it. David's embraced the advice, turned to it many times already, and Divad needs to do the same. And he can see now that even though it's all about love and relationships, what it's about most of all is what their system desperately needs: healthy boundaries. Being able to say no, how to recognize when they need to say no, and the basics of what to do after that: talking, getting help, or rejection.

Not that any of them can truly reject each other. God knows they’ve all tried to escape in one way or another. But they're stuck with each other so they have to make it work. And of course David's been desperately trying to heal their system, but he can't do it all for them. He can't do anything about the absolute wreck that is Divad and Dvd's relationship.

God, did they ever have a relationship? Right from the start, everything was about David. David was the one being tortured, David was the one they had to help, David's thoughts were mixed in with theirs, making them feel like they weren't anything more than parts of him. But that's not fair. As terrible as the consequences have been, David gave them his mental shields to protect them. He couldn't have known that his tormented thoughts would be a worse torture than anything the monster ever did to them. He was just a little kid when his mind shattered into a system, he was just— He was just trying to save them.

David was always trying to save them. They were never just stress responses to him. It must have made him feel so alone, to be told— The people he shared his life with weren't real. They didn't claim to be hallucinations, of course not, they were real. But they didn't want to be people, they didn't want David's life to be theirs. Right from the start—

They abandoned David. They let the bad things happen only to him, and then Divad told David it was his fault they were happening. Divad and Dvd both told David to stay away from other people, so David would stop hurting their family and being hurt by their pain, so the monster wouldn't have anything to use against them. Even before they imprisoned him in their body, they were already closing in around him, cutting him off from the world, isolating him— The way _they_ were isolated. They ripped him open so he would have the same wounds as them. 

And David loved them anyway. No matter how much they hurt him— Because they hurt him? Like Syd? Or—

No. There's no way David ever loved the monster. Okay, he loved King, but— King was a dog. That's not the same as— It's just not the same. 

But the re-enacting— Divad can't help but wonder— How did it start? None of them remembers the beginning, even before David forgot, they were so young— Farouk must have been lying about trying to make David love him, he doesn't even know what love is. 

But the whole thing leaves Divad more than a little— Unsettled. It feels like— Standing at the edge of a cliff with his eyes closed. He doesn't want to open them and look down and see how far they'll fall with one step forward—

No. No, he can't— They shouldn't think about— He needs to finish his foundation work. He needs to do that. He did everything else, he needs to do his therapy list. But he looks over at Dvd again, and— Dvd is struggling badly. 

Divad should probably be smug about that, too. But Ptonomy said— Therapy is a team event. They all need to get better together so they can win. And maybe his and Dvd's relationship is a disaster, but— If they're going to fix their system, they have to fix their relationship. And Ptonomy said— He said helping each other get better as individuals would help heal their relationships and make them strong. 

Divad can't imagine what a healthy relationship with Dvd would even look like. But Dvd needs help. Divad did an awful job of helping David, but— He has a page full of new ideas to try to use and make his own. If Divad is love— If love is giving each other affection and support— Maybe he can try to give Dvd some affection and support? 

He's probably going to be terrible at it, but David's been terrible at a lot of things, and he keeps trying and as long as he keeps trying— He gets better at them. So Divad has to try, too.

§

Dvd wasn't sure about all this personal foundation stuff when Ptonomy told them to make them. And he's not any more convinced now that he's written it all down. He copied all that foundation and mantra and relationship stuff and thought about it. He's thinking about it now. He's just not—

It's not like he doesn't understand the concept. He's watched David doing all of this so many times, he didn't even need to look up any of the words because he's heard them so much he's memorized them, too. He knows they've helped David a lot, obviously they have, but— 

It's hard enough just accepting that he's not a stress response. And not just not a stress response, but an individual person, that's he more than just— What David needs. All he's ever been is what David needs. And maybe he fucked that up, okay he definitely fucked that up, but—

He glances over at Divad. He's taken to this foundation stuff like a duck to water, and of course he has. All he ever wanted to be was a separate person and now he's got Ptonomy's blessing to be that. And David already thinks he's a separate person. So it's just Dvd who's left. That's all their system is now, it's just Dvd. And that's— A system of one person is basically just a separate person. So even though that's the last thing he wants to be, he doesn't have a choice, because he's all that's left.

He's not going to cry again. After what he did to David for all those years— He doesn't deserve to cry. He should just— Wallow in his misery. Even if Divad won't punish him, he still deserves to be punished. Dvd's always hurt anyone who hurt David, he can't— Not hurt himself. But— He was always— The part of David that didn't hurt himself, the part that did whatever it took to keep David from wanting to hurt himself. He's spent his whole life intervening to keep David from thinking bad thoughts. He can't make himself think bad thoughts. What if Ptonomy makes them share their thoughts again? Dvd can't put bad thoughts into David's head, that's— He _can't_.

So he doesn't know what to do anymore, and even though he's trying to see himself in David's words— He just feels confused. He's supposed to be the part of David that doesn't need help. He's supposed to be a part of David, not— Dvd Haller.

He doesn't like this, trying to be Dvd Haller. He just doesn't. It feels completely wrong and unnatural, like— Like being projected all the time feels. Like not sharing all the time feels.

But they're never going to share again, not after what Divad said. Divad didn't just hate sharing, it was torture for him. It's what made him hurt David. So obviously they can't ever share again. Not that Divad will even want to, not when he's so happy being a separate person, and David won't want it when he's so happy being a separate person. So Dvd's just sharing with himself, which isn't sharing at all. He's a system of one person sharing with himself. What a joke.

He didn't put anything in his wish list. What could he possibly ask for? To be a system again? For David to love him? Those are the last things he'll ever get, no matter what Ptonomy said about David having feelings for him. Being a system and Dvd's love both hurt David terribly, so they can't ever happen again. Whatever bad things happen to David, Dvd has to make sure they never happen again. That's all he has left now. The only thing he can do for David is to stop himself from happening to David, because Dvd is a bad thing.

If only their bedroom wasn't destroyed— But David offered to make it again. If he did— Dvd never cared about the world anyway. The world is awful, fuck the world. There's nothing in it for him, nothing but people hating them and judging them and hurting them. When he covered for David, he wasn't faking like Divad was, he _covered for David_ and he _meant it_. He didn't try to have his own life because it was never his life, so if he goes back to the bedroom and never comes out again—

But the shit beetle— And Divad— Dvd can't leave until he knows David will be safe. He can't remove himself from David's life until the shit beetle is removed from existence. He can't abandon David until Divad's thoughts are safe for him. Dvd can't hear Divad's thoughts right now, but when they drop their shields again Dvd will keep a very close eye on them. Maybe all this therapy stuff will help him as much as it's helping David, and then— They'll just be two healthy people who happen to share a body. And then Dvd can— He can go away. If there's no point to him—

Alters don't have to be permanent. There've been plenty of alters who were only temporary, who popped into existence to help David and then went away again. They were just fragments, without any real sense of self, without any of their own memories or even names. They did their job and then— When their job was done, they were done. So maybe— Maybe all of this just means Dvd is done. He was never a full person, he's just— A fragment with delusions. 

A tissue box slides over his notebook. He looks up. Divad is holding it.

Dvd sniffs and takes a tissue and wipes his eyes, blows his nose. He doesn't care if Divad's going to be cruel about him crying. He deserves to be punished anyway. He takes another tissue.

'Thanks,' he sends to Divad with a mutter, when Divad doesn't say anything. 

Divad puts the tissue box down on the coffee table. He doesn't go back to writing in his notebook. Dvd glances at it. Divad wrote more than him, of course. He even put a bunch of things in his wish list. But fragments don't have wish lists. They don't have foundations. Dvd should just rip out his page and crumple it up and throw it out, the whole idea of him having a personal notebook is a joke, too. His whole life is just one big joke.

‘Having trouble?’ Divad asks.

Dvd blows his nose again by way of an answer. 'None of your business.'

Divad looks vaguely exasperated, which is typical for him. But he tries again. ‘Maybe I can help. All of this foundation work is, uh, a lot harder than it looks.’

'It's David's thing,' Dvd thinks, dismissive.

'He wants to share it with us,' Divad thinks. 

'No he doesn't,' Dvd insists. 'Ptonomy made us share. David doesn't want anything to do with us.'

Divad gives him another exasperated look. 'Must you always be such a child?'

'Fuck off, _separate person_ ,' Dvd snarls.

Divad looks to the ceiling and sighs. Then he turns back to Dvd. 'We both need to get better so we can fix our system.'

'Liar,' Dvd mutters. 'You're getting better so you can leave. You never wanted to be part of our system. The shit beetle fucked David up and now— You win. I'm outvoted. We're just three separate people who happen to share a body, we don't have anything to do with each other, so _leave me alone_.'

'I don't want to leave,' Divad insists.

'Oh yeah?' Dvd grabs Divad's notebook and points to the wish list. 'Liar,' he sneers again, and shoves the notebook back.

'And what do you want?' Divad challenges. He leans over to look, but Dvd turns his notebook over. 

'None of your business,' Dvd thinks again. 

'Fine, don't show me,' Divad thinks. 'It's not like it isn't obvious to everyone what you want. It's the same thing you've always wanted, it's the same thing you'll always want. David.'

'Shows what you know,' Dvd grumbles. 

'What's that supposed to mean?' Divad asks.

'None of your business is what it means,' Dvd thinks again, because Divad is just not getting it.

Divad shuts up for five blissful seconds, and then he starts again. 'So why were you crying? And don't say none of your business. We're a system, of course it's my business.'

'We're not a system,' Dvd insists. 'It's done, it's over. We never should have happened in the first place. You know what we are? We're a _mistake_. David fucked up when he made us and all we did was hurt him, so you go ahead and leave the way you've always wanted to leave and—' He cuts himself off.

'And what?' Divad presses. 'You'll go hide in the bedroom for the rest of our life?'

'Maybe,' Dvd thinks, looking away from him. 

'You're the one who talked me out of doing that,' Divad reminds him.

'Yeah, and I shouldn't have,' Dvd thinks. 'You were right. David has to be part of the world. He always should have been and all we did was fuck that up.'

'We all have to be part of the world,' Divad thinks.

'Now who's delusional?' Dvd sneers.

'We're all Davids, remember?' Divad thinks. 'Davids shouldn't be locked away. We shouldn’t have done that to David, I'm not gonna let you do it to yourself.'

'Try and stop me,' Dvd scoffs. 'And anyway, that's not— I'm not gonna do that so it doesn't matter.'

Divad gives him a curious look, then it shifts to concern. 'I know that face,' he thinks. 'That's the 'I'm gonna do something stupidly self-sacrificing' face. David gets it all the time.'

'Yeah, well, I'm a David,' Dvd admits. 'We share the same stupid face.'

'So let's hear it,' Divad prompts. 'What's the grand gesture that's stewing in there?' He taps Dvd on the forehead.

Dvd slaps his hand away. 'Like I said, none of your business. Maybe you should make that part of your precious mantra.'

'Maybe you should make 'We're a system and we help each other' part of yours, since you've suddenly forgotten how we work.'

'How we work?!' Dvd thinks, outraged. 'Don't you fucking dare tell me how we work. We _don't_ , that's how we work! You know what our system was? It was torture. It was us torturing David for twenty years, deluding ourselves that we were doing something to help. The only thing that was ever good about our system is David and we're the ones that should— We should leave him alone. He doesn't need us, he never did. If we're gone— It's like we never existed. David won't have to remember us, he won't have to remember any of it.'

'We can't leave,' Divad insists. 'And David's never going to make a new bedroom if you're going to make it a prison. How do you think he'll feel, knowing part of himself is trapped inside him?'

'We're not parts of him,' Dvd mutters. 'You know what we are? Delusional _fragments_.'

'Fragments?' Divad thinks, surprised. 'What do they have to do with anything?'

'They finish what they're for and then they're done,' Dvd thinks. ‘That's what I'm gonna do. As soon as the shit beetle is gone, Dvd is _done_.'

'You can't be serious,' Divad thinks, concerned. 'Who are you even gonna fuse with? I'm not fusing with you, I'm just figuring out who I am! And so is David. Look at all the work he's been doing to be himself, you wanna mess that up? You're not some tiny fragment, you're— You're a whole person!'

'Then you have to wipe my memory first,' Dvd tells him. 'If I can't remember anything— You'd get all my powers, you'd love that.'

'Are you even listening to yourself?' Divad asks, at a loss. 'No one is wiping anyone's memories and no one is getting locked away and no one is killing themselves!'

'I have to do something,' Dvd insists, pained. 'I tried this foundation stuff and it's just— I can't be a separate person. I can't be outside all the time, I can't— I can't do all that stuff.'

'You did it for David,' Divad points out.

'For David,' Dvd thinks, firmly. 'Not for me. Not— Forever.'

'You're afraid,' Divad realizes.

'Of course I'm afraid!' Dvd thinks, annoyed. 'Even if we get rid of the shit beetle— The world is full of monsters. That's all the world is.'

'So what, you're going to abandon David to a world full of monsters?' Divad asks, disbelieving.

That stings. 'I don't— It's not like that. I just— David shouldn't have to share his body with any more monsters.'

Divad gives him a long look, then softens. 'Dvd, you're not a monster.'

'Of course I am,' Dvd says, because it's just the truth. 'You heard what Ptonomy said. We're both monsters. But you already want to leave, so— David will be safe from you no matter what.'

'We were just traumatized kids,' Divad insists. 'We have to forgive ourselves. Our whole system has to forgive itself for everything. That's what David wants. It's what we put down for our system foundation. We forgive each other, right?'

'You put that in,' Dvd thinks, still reluctant to trust any idea that comes from Divad no matter how good it sounds. 

'And why do you think I did that?' Divad asks him. 'Because refusing to forgive— Ptonomy said that's refusing to let ourselves heal. We have to heal so we can make the torture stop.'

'Not existing would make the torture stop,' Dvd mutters.

'How do you think David would feel if he lost you now?' Divad thinks. 'He has feelings for you. You make him happy. You're— You're the light bulb in his lamp.'

'That's the last thing I am,' Dvd mutters. 'He doesn't even want to think about me at all anymore. Thinking about me hurts him.'

'That's how he felt about Syd,' Divad reminds him. 'We have to give him time, but— Leaving isn't the answer. Besides— If you're gone, who's gonna keep me in line?'

Dvd gives him a skeptical look. 'I thought you'd be thrilled to erase me.'

'Well you're wrong,' Divad tells him. 'I didn't— Thank you, before. For stopping me. So, uh, Thanks.'

Dvd doesn't know what to do with that. 'Protecting David is what I'm for.'

'It's what we both chose to do,' Divad thinks. 'We're not 'for' anything. We're just— Ourselves, and— We can choose what that means.'

'If that was supposed to make me feel better, it's not working,' Dvd tells him. 'I'm not like you. All I've ever been is one thing. I don't know how to be anything else.'

'You've never tried,' Divad points out. 'You know, I forgot what an absolutely terrible student you are. It's no wonder you're having trouble. You never learned how to learn.'

Dvd narrows his eyes at Divad. 'Are you calling me stupid?'

Divad pauses. 'You're a David. Davids aren't stupid. But we were supposed to have people helping us, and— We didn't. So we need to let people help us now, so we can be— What we were always meant to be.'

'We were meant to just be David,' Dvd says. If David had never been shattered, they would just be David. There wouldn't be a Dvd or a Divad.

'Well, it happened,' Divad admits. 'So we have to do the best we can with what we've got. We're all— A bunch of ceramic pieces on a tray, right?'

'Don't you start, too,' Dvd moans.

'Hey, that lamp is important to all of us,' Divad reminds him. 'David isn't the only one who loves it. We all love it. And if we're all the lamp— Then we all love each other.'

Dvd gives a disbelieving look for that.

'Or we're trying,' Divad allows. 'Ptonomy says if we help put each other back together, that will help our system heal. I want that. I don't— I never wanted to leave. I just— need to be myself. Being myself doesn't mean— Being alone.'

Dvd gives him a suspicious look now. 'That doesn't sound like a Divad thought.'

'Well, I've been trying to get better for a while,' Divad admits. 'I just— Didn't want to admit that I needed to. I was still listening, trying to take it all in. I just— Told myself it was for David.'

Dvd has to admit he relates to that.

'You know, you gave David a really good idea about that lamp,' Divad tells him. 'You showed him it wasn't his fault that he didn't do a good job putting it back together. And— Because David thinks we're all the lamp, he saw that it wasn't our fault that we didn't do a good job putting our system together. You gave David some really good advice. You should be proud of that.'

'I guess I did do that,' Dvd realizes. He just couldn't take David beating himself up about that lamp one more time— 

'And, um, I once read— That being brave isn't not being afraid. It's— Being afraid and then doing it anyway. So all the covering you did for David, even though you were afraid— That was really brave of you to do that.'

'Are you giving me compassion therapy?' Dvd asks, suspiciously.

'Sort of, I guess,' Divad admits. 'But mostly, I just— I don't want you to give up on yourself, or on us. I want our system to be— Healthy and supportive and— The opposite of torture. I want it to be something that makes us happy. I want us to love each other. Maybe that's impossible, but— David wants it, and— We were always so focused on what we thought David needed. We should try to give him what he’s actually asking for.'

'What if he never wants to see me again?' Dvd asks, feeling terribly vulnerable and hating it.

'If he can't ever forgive you, then— I don't want a system with someone who hates you.'

'Any system with you is always a system with someone who hates me,' Dvd thinks.

'Not anymore,' Divad insists. 'This is me forgiving you, okay? Because you were only trying to keep David safe. And because you were right about me, and— I should have listened to you. I was so busy always being right that— I couldn't see how wrong I was.'

'You were really wrong,' Dvd agrees. But he looks to Divad. 'Do you mean it?'

'I'm thinking it, right?' Divad points out, wryly. But he sobers. 'Yes. I mean it. I know our lives have been hell, but— We always stayed alive for each other. We kept each other going, even if— That meant tearing each other apart. If you hadn't been with me all those years— You were the only one who knew I existed. You were the only one who cared. I never thanked you for that, either, so— Thank you.'

Dvd just stares at Divad. 

'Do you have to look so shocked?' Divad asks, self-conscious.

'Yeah,' Dvd thinks. But he shakes it off. 'Um. You're welcome, I guess.'

Divad looks pleased by that. 'So c'mon. Let me see your notebook.'

'No,' Dvd thinks. Divad's going to make fun of him for it, call him an idiot— Dvd's already humiliated enough that he can't do what Divad and David can. He feels useless and stupid and—

'Okay,' Divad thinks. 'Then maybe you can help me with mine. I still need to do the last section, and— That's the hardest.'

'The therapy list?' Dvd asks. He didn't even try to start on his therapy list, it just felt— Completely beyond him.

Divad shows him his notebook. He has two new mantras along with the new wish list. 'I don't have to hurt David and I never did,' Dvd reads. 'That's a pretty good mantra.' And 'I'm not going to be forgotten'—

Dvd never wanted to be known, not by the world. As long as David knew him, that was all that mattered. So of course that's what the shit beetle took away. David still barely knows him. But Dvd barely knew himself. He thought he did, but— 

It reminds him of Kerry, suddenly. She's said things like that, about how she didn't know herself. How she was doing things because they were the only way she knew to do things, but it turned out— They weren't what she needed. Dvd's never really— Wanted to talk to someone. About himself. Because he didn't matter, only David mattered, and— Because there was no one who could understand.

But Kerry might understand. And— Maybe Divad understands. He's the only one who understands— What it means to just be David for so long— He doesn't know what's left now that the David they used to be is gone.

A fresh wave of grief catches him by surprise. David is David, he's always been David, but— There's still a ragged, gaping hole where Dvd's heart should be. And it feels wrong to— Letting it heal would be— It would be giving up. But he can't— Not love David. Even if David hates him forever now, he can't not love David. Even if he's not— Dvd's David. Even if he'll never be Dvd's David ever again. Loving David is— It's who Dvd is. It's all he's ever been. He's— David's Dvd. He doesn't belong to himself. He belongs to David. 

He wipes roughly at his eyes, then looks at David at the table, sitting with Syd and— Loving her. And it's torture. It hurts so much. He tries so hard to accept David's love for Syd. He can't do anything to hurt David, and— David doesn't remember what they had. Even if what they had— Was all wrong. It was _theirs_.

But David forgot. David forgot him. 

'Dvd,' Divad says, concerned. 

'I miss him so much,' Dvd thinks, his face crumpling with grief. But he can't— He can't cry in front of David, he can't— He can't let David see— He can't—

But there's nowhere he can go. He can't leave, there's no bedroom to save him. The only place he can retreat to is the loft, so he projects himself there and curls up in the corner where David was before, thinking about how much he loved Dvd. Dvd curls up and cries against his knees.

It's not long before someone comes after him. It's only Divad, thank god. Dvd never thought he'd be grateful to have Divad be the one to see him breaking down.

Divad offers him the tissue box again, and Dvd takes it. But tissues only make him think of David. David's the one who always goes through all the tissues. Dvd's supposed to be the one who makes him smile again. If he can't make David smile— What's supposed to make Dvd smile?

'Oh, c'mere,' Divad sighs, and pulls him into his arms. 'I miss him, too.'

Dvd clings to Divad. They never used to comfort each other. They were stress responses. They had to comfort David, that was what they were for. But David doesn't let them comfort him anymore, not like he used to. And without that— Dvd never realized how much comforting David was about letting David comfort him back. How much holding him was just— So David would hold him. Because they were just as terrified and traumatized as him. Because all the bad things were happening to all of them, not just David. 

But David forgot. He forgot everything, all the terrible things and all the good things. All the little things they shared, every small gesture, every futile self-sacrifice— All the times they held each other, all the times they made each other smile. All of that, all of that is gone, and it's torture to be the only one between them who remembers it. It's _torture_.

Fuck the shit beetle. _Fuck him._ He must be loving this so much, he must be wallowing in Dvd's suffering, gorging himself on it. Well, fuck him. _Fuck him fuck him fuck him._

Dvd pulls himself out of Divad's arms and breathes in, wipes away his tears. Fuck the shit beetle. If they have to build new foundations to build a new system to get stable to get the crown off to _crush the shit beetle into dust and immolate his ashes in the heart of the sun_ , then that's what Dvd's gonna do.

'The therapy list,' he thinks, summoning his notebook again. 'Um. We need to do that.'

'Okay,' Divad thinks. He sits back beside Dvd and summons his own. He gives Dvd one more concerned look before getting down to business. "I thought— We'd use both David and Syd's to figure out what we need for ours.'

Divad creates two loose pages, each with David or Syd's foundation work. It makes Dvd feel a tiny bit better that Syd hasn't filled in her wish list yet either. He doesn't want to empathize with her, but— She ruined things with David, too. Dvd feels— Spitefully glad but also— Annoyed at her for hurting David, but also— Kind of bad for her being sucked into the hell that the shit beetle made for all of them. 

Whatever. He looks at the therapy lists with Divad.

'First one's pretty easy,' Divad decides. 'Accept help. Period.'

'Yeah,' Dvd agrees. Dvd doesn't need to be loved by all the people helping them, he just needs to get better. They both write it down. 

'Leave my old refuge,' Divad mulls. 'Stop punishing myself. I'm not— Sure what our refuges are? Maybe we could just put— Stop punishing our system? We all have the shame parasite, remember?'

'Fine,’ Dvd thinks.

'Be open and vulnerable,' Divad reads. 'And learn to recognize what I'm feeling and to manage my reactions.'

'Ptonomy said we need to do what David's doing,' Dvd reminds him. 'So we don't— Blow things up and run away.'

Divad grimaces. 'Then both?'

'Both,' Dvd agrees. 'We don't need to find our motivations, though.' The shit beetle's utter annihilation is more than enough to keep him going.

'Believe I am worth saving,' Divad reads, and pauses. 'I need that.' He writes it down.

'I don't,' Dvd insists.

Divad gives him a look. 'Five minutes ago you asked me to erase you.'

Dvd groans. 'Fine. I'll write it, too. I just— Wouldn't need that if David—' He doesn't finish. There's no point. David might never love him again, and if he doesn't— And when the shit beetle is dead— 

That future feels painfully empty. His motivation will be gone, he'll be alone, and then what will be the point of him? Nothing. He'll be— He'll be done. Maybe by then— Maybe Divad will change his mind and erase him and then let him fuse. It wouldn't be great, he wouldn't be himself anymore, but— 

He can't think about all that. He has to stay focused on getting better so he can destroy the shit beetle. He can end himself after they get better.

'Should we put down the foundation and mantra?' Divad asks.

'I guess,' Dvd says. 'They don't really feel like—' He trails off.

'They're not ours yet,' Divad thinks. 'We need to make them our own. Let's put: Make my foundation and mantra my own.'

Dvd writes that.

'And the next one,' Divad continues. 'Build my new self, figure out who I'm supposed to be? Or maybe— Be in the world and find myself in it. What about you?'

Dvd doesn't know what to put. If he's just going to get erased anyway— He doesn't see much point in putting all that work into figuring out who he is. He's Dvd, he's the part of David that loves David. If David doesn't want that part of him anymore, Dvd should just stop existing. He shouldn't try to be something more than what he is.

'I don't need that one,' Dvd thinks.

'Are you sure?' Divad asks.

'I don't need it,' Dvd insists. 'Let's just keep going.'

'Okay,' Divad accepts. 'Accept my wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them. Learn acceptance and compassion for myself and others. Let's leave those the same.'

'Fine,' Dvd thinks, and writes them. They're almost done, thank god. 

'The last two are just David's,' Divad thinks. 'Learn to trust my own mind. Be more than my shame. Those are— What David needs to thrive. So we should put what we need to thrive.' He thinks hard. 'I already put a lot of that in my wish list, but— This is about therapy, so—'

'I don't need that part either,' Dvd thinks, and closes his notebook.

'Dvd,' Divad thinks, concerned.

'I just need to get better,' Dvd insists. 'I don't need all this— People stuff. It's too much.'

'The people stuff is what helps us get better,' Divad thinks.

'For you and David, sure,' Dvd thinks. 'But not for me. It's just— Not for me, okay? I'm not like you two, I can't—' He struggles to continue. 'I don't want to talk anymore. Leave me alone.'

'You can't be alone,' Divad reminds him. 'You have to sit with someone, even if you don't want to talk. How about— How about Kerry? She's reading one of those books. You can just sit with her or— You can read with her.'

'Fine,' Dvd grumbles. He thinks away his notebook and hugs his knees again. 

'I'll send her up,' Divad promises, but hesitates. 'Dvd—'

'Leave me alone,' Dvd mutters, and puts his head down, hiding his face.


	101. Day 11: What *did* happen to my rational mind?

Divad was so focused on David not hearing his and Dvd's session and their conversation that he forgot about the relay. Everyone heard everything, everyone except David and Syd. And they didn't just hear what Divad and Dvd said, they heard their thoughts, they heard whatever Dvd was thinking. And what Dvd said was worrying enough.

He doesn't even reach the bottom of the stairs before Kerry is standing up, book in hand and determination on her face. 

"I'm here," Divad says aloud, so she knows where he is.

Kerry walks over to him. "We're gonna keep Dvd safe, okay? We're gonna get the bad ideas out of him."

Divad looks at her, at Ptonomy and Amy and Lenny and Oliver— And he thinks— Maybe they really are his friends, too, and Dvd's friends. "Thank you," he says to them, humbled yet again. He's not doing this alone. That's in all their mantras now, and— After a lifetime of thinking they had to do everything on their own, that no one could help them— Divad's never been so glad to be wrong.

He steps aside as Kerry walks up the stairs to the loft, and he watches her go up. She did so much to help David when he was— When it was all too much for him. He knows she'll be able to help Dvd the same way. 

"What's going on?" David asks, looking around at everyone. He stands up, looks up at the loft, worried and uncertain. 'Should I— If Dvd needs help—'

"Divad," Ptonomy says, standing up as well. "How about we all sit together?" He walks over to the table and sits down, and David hesitates before sitting down, too. 

Lenny detaches from Amy, and they and Oliver come over to the table. 

"I'll relay to Syd for you," Ptonomy tells Divad. "It's important that we're all on the same page."

'You said we shouldn't tell David,' Divad thinks at Ptonomy. He wanted them all to talk about it together as a system, but now—

'Dvd's situation changes things,' Ptonomy tells him back through the relay. 'David needs to know about Dvd's condition, and he's going to have questions. We'll all help both of you through it.'

Divad glances around at everyone. It's not like has a choice about this, but— 'Okay,' he tells Ptonomy.

'Thank you,' Ptonomy says, and then turns back to David. "Dvd is— Struggling right now. He's had to accept that the relationship he had with you is gone, and without that— He sees no future for himself."

"No future?" David asks, concerned.

“He’s suicidal,” Ptonomy says, blunt but as gentle as possible. “Like you were after your relationship with Syd was destroyed."

David takes that in. He looks at Syd, at Divad, up at the loft again, and then to Ptonomy. "I don't remember what we had," he says, strained. "And after what you said, that— That Dvd had sex with me to control me, when that wasn't what I wanted— And Farouk—" He cuts himself off, looking ill.

"It had nothing to do with Farouk," Divad defends. Except everything was always about the monster, the monster was always there, always— "Dvd was just trying to protect you." 

"Protect me?" David asks, at a loss. "How did that protect me?"

Ptonomy raises a hand to stop them, then relays Divad's words to Syd. Then he waves them to continue.

Divad struggles for the right way to explain all of this. Maybe there is no right way. "You have to understand," he tells David. "All of us, all we ever wanted was to make the torture stop. And even though we could've just locked ourselves in our bedroom— We couldn't abandon you. But staying meant hearing your thoughts. It meant— Sharing your life, your choices. And that was— It was torture for us. So we did whatever it took to— Stop you from torturing us. Even if that meant—"

Ptonomy relays that to Syd while David stares at Divad, horrified.

"It wasn't our fault," Divad says, urgently. "We were just kids, we had a monster in our head ruining everything—" He rubs at his face. "If we could go back we would have done everything differently. We would have kept trying to get help. We would have found someone who believed us. We would have been honest about our powers, our system— But we didn't know how. We didn't know we could without— Making everything worse. And it was already _so bad_ —"

He stops so Ptonomy can relay that to Syd, and so he can gather himself. David's not saying anything, he's not even thinking anything, he's just staring at Divad.

"David," Divad pleads.

David holds up a hand, just like Ptonomy. "I know it's— I know whatever happened— I know it wasn't our fault, I know that. But it's—" He stops, struggles. "The thing is— All of this— I don't know if— Remembering would make forgiveness— Easier or harder. Sometimes I think— Whatever I imagine, it couldn't have been— But maybe it's the opposite. Maybe what we did to each other is so awful—"

Divad doesn't know what to say. It was exactly that awful, but it was also— "We were just parts of you. And Dvd— He just wanted you to love yourself. We heard your thoughts like they were our own, and the way you hated yourself— It made me angry, but Dvd— He tried to love you so much you _had_ to love yourself. No matter what the monster did, now matter how awful your thoughts were, he never gave up on you. If it wasn't for him—"

David sits back, stunned. Ptonomy relays to Syd, and Syd looks— Like she suddenly understands something. Like some missing piece just fell into place.

"I really was your Dvd," Syd tells David, gently. "Even when your life seemed— Utterly hopeless— You had love. I think— What you felt for me, before— That's what you felt for him."

'That's how I felt,' David thinks, upset and confused but— 'Dvd felt like Syd, but things went so wrong with Syd— They went wrong with Dvd— How much of my whole life is just— Re-enacting a past I can't possibly remember? Re-enacting is— It feels like I shouldn't do anything I did before, but— Then what's left?'

"David," Ptonomy says, gently. "Remember, this is like your memories. There's good and bad mixed together in those re-enactments. In fact, you could see re-enacting as— Another kind of memory. Farouk might have taken most of your conscious memories, your experiential and semantic knowledge, but— There's a lot he didn't or couldn't take away. He took away all those memories of your mom, but he couldn't make you forget how much she loved you."

David stares at Ptonomy. "But he did make me forget, that’s gone."

"You still remember," Ptonomy says. "Divad, tell David how your mom loved you."

"Um," Divad starts. "Like she wanted to fill us up with so much love— We would never lose it."

Ptonomy relays that. "Amy, was that how your mom's love felt to you?"

"Of course," Amy says, sad but— Warmed by the memory. "She knew that— One day we'd lose her, but— She wanted her love to always be with us, to live on inside us for the rest of our lives. She taught all of us how to love, David. She showed us every day. And on the bad days, she loved us even more. That's what kept all of us going, what kept your system going. That's what kept you going when you lost everything else. Mom's love."

David puts his hand over his heart. 'Syd said— That's why she fell in love with me,' he thinks. 

"You took that love and made it your own," Ptonomy tells David. "Just like you have for the ideas in your foundation work. And once it was yours, nothing could take it away. That love is part of your foundation and always has been. And the thing about your system? You shared everything, so you shared that love."

'So the love I feel and— The love Dvd feels for me— They're from Mom?' David thinks, wondering. 

"And me," Divad says. He's had enough of David feeling like Divad doesn't love him. He wants their system to be love, not torture. "Maybe I'm— The worst at showing it, but—" He takes a breath. "Shame makes it— Difficult. David, I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I'm sorry I made our shame worse. I thought somehow that— If we just made the right choices— The torture would stop and then— You'd stop wanting to die. And I'd stop wanting to die. Don't be mad at Dvd for— Trying to stop all of us from wanting to die."

Ptonomy relays that to Syd. And David listens to it again, from Ptonomy.

"And now Dvd wants to die," David says, quietly. He rubs his face, frustrated. "I wish I could just— Love him back the way he needs me to. And I do feel— Something for him, but—" He looks distressed, painfully so. 

"It's okay," Amy soothes, putting her arm around him. "All of this is so much. It's okay to feel upset."

"But— Me being upset—" David struggles. "He's hearing that. That's— Me being upset is what tortured you. Hearing me not loving him—" He looks at Syd, pained. 'It hurt so much, hearing Syd not loving me. God, I can't— I can't do that to him, but—'

That reaction is what Divad was afraid of. It would be so easy for David to spiral, and that would make Dvd spiral, and— 'Ptonomy,' Divad thinks to him, worried. 'Please tell me you've got this.'

'We've got this,' Ptonom assures him. "David," Ptonomy says, in that calm but firm tone that works best for grabbing David's focus. "Dvd needs to learn to be his own person. Depending entirely on you is unhealthy for him. Just as it was unhealthy for you to depend entirely on Syd. He needs to learn to be his own Dvd, just like you're learning to be your own David."

"Okay, but—" David starts.

"You know how difficult that can be," Ptonomy continues. "And Dvd will absolutely need your help, just like you need his help for your therapy. But now isn't the time for that. He’s just learning how to be his own person. He needs you to let him do that. He needs the space to work through his feelings."

"But I can't just— Let him suffer," David protests.

"That's exactly what you need to do," Ptonomy says. "That's what Amy and Syd and all of us had to do for you. And now you're getting better, right?"

"Yeah," David admits. He looks around the table. "Was it really— Like this?" he asks them.

"Worse," Syd admits. Amy nods in agreement, and so does Lenny. Divad nods, too.

"I'm sorry," David says, upset. 'I never meant to—'

"It's okay," Amy says. "Just keep letting us help you get better. We're helping Dvd too, and Divad. We're helping all three of you build a healthy system together."

David leans against Amy, grateful. He visibly draws strength from her, then straightens up. "Okay. Um. What should we do?" He glances at the clock. "Should I um, swap with Dvd?"

"Not yet," Ptonomy says. "Let's give him some time to himself. And David, I think you have a question that Divad needs to answer."

"I do?" David asks, confused.

"About how your system works," Ptonomy says. "A while ago, you asked Divad about— I believe you called him 'your rational mind.' Divad, what happened to David's 'rational mind'?"

Shit. Shit shit shit. Stay calm, Divad tells himself. 

"What _did_ happen to my rational mind?" David asks, realizing how good a question that is. "He would've been— Really useful for— Well, _everything_."

"He was temporary," Divad says, absolutely avoiding the question.

"Temporary how?" David asks, suspicious. "And how could he have been temporary? Even Farouk couldn't—" Realization dawns on his face. "He's— He's part of me, part of our system. Divad, what happened to him?"

'I really hate you right now,' Divad thinks at Ptonomy, instead of glaring at him. David never would have thought to ask without the reminder. "Y'know, you'd know this if you'd actually paid attention to Syd's book."

David gives him an astonished look as Ptonomy relays that to Syd.

"Well, now's your chance to enlighten me," David challenges. "How can we be a system of three people if there's four of us?"

Divad bites his tongue. He refuses to think of a number.

"More than four of us?" David asks, astonished again. "How many Davids have there been?" When Divad still refuses to answer, David huffs in annoyance. "Syd, can you, uh, get your book?"

"Of course," Syd says, and goes to find it. It was in Cary's work area. She brings it back and David takes it, opens to the section on DID.

"Alters," David reads aloud, skimming. "Types of alters— Wow, there's so many kinds—" He reads, dragging his finger down the pages. "But none of these are temporary." He keeps skimming, then looks up, frustrated. "I have no idea what I'm looking for. Can you please just tell me?"

"Fragments," Divad spits out. 

"Fragments," David echoes, and looks for that. "'Fragment alters are very limited in their role. They may only have a small number of emotions, hold particular isolated memories, or have a very limited job. Special purpose fragments are even more limited, they may carry out a very limited role and never act beyond that.' He reads it again, silently. "Okay. So my rational mind was a fragment. That still doesn't explain what happened to him. Is he still inside me somewhere? Can I— Can we find him?"

"He isn't missing," Divad admits, through gritted teeth. 

Ptonomy gives them another push. "We thought it was odd that your system has only three members," he explains to David. "Especially a system that went through such extreme trauma. On average, a system might have 15 members, but there are those that go into the hundreds."

"Hundreds?" David asks, amazed. "How do they even function?"

"It's extremely difficult for them," Ptonomy admits. "Usually there's a smaller number that tries to manage things, and the bulk of the members might never leave the inner world. But your system found another solution. Divad, would you like to tell David, or does it need to be done on your behalf?"

'I hate you so much,' Divad thinks at Ptonomy. "Fine," he says to David, tersely. "Look, you need to understand. We couldn't have— A bunch of fragments running around the place. Our head wasn't safe. They weren't like me and Dvd, they weren't strong enough to protect themselves. When bad things happened— They appeared to help, and then— They were done."

"Done?" David asks, warily. "What, did you kill them?"

"Of course not!" Divad says, annoyed. "They fused with us."

"Fused?" David asks. He looks down at the book again, then back to Divad. "I thought— We can't be glued back together, as one person."

"Reintegration used to be the primary goal of DID therapy," Ptonomy admits. "In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the reference books your system read when you were young said exactly that. Divad?"

"Yeah," Divad admits. 

"So your system read those books, and you and Dvd accepted the idea that you weren't quite real," Ptonony says. "You weren't hallucinations, but you didn't want to be real enough for the monster to target you the way it did David. And when more alters appeared, as you said, your head was a dangerous place. The three of you had worked out how to manage that, but more alters meant more potential ways for the monster to hurt David. So you used what you learned from the books to keep your system small."

"So reintegration is actually possible?" David asks.

"It is," Ptonomy says. "But it's not necessary for systems to reintegrate to be healthy, and it's not necessarily even desirable. You've spent your whole lives together. Fusing would mean losing the companionship you've shared, it would mean losing those relationships. It would also mean merging your senses of self and accepting all of your collective memories, emotions, and trauma into one identity. Remember, your system was created because that trauma was too much for one David to bear."

"Okay," David says, taking that in. "But— What happened to my rational mind?"

"He fused with me," Divad admits. "All the fragments that appeared— They came into existence to protect you. Sometimes they had— A little knowledge, or a little power, or— A few memories. After they helped you, we found them, explained the situation to them. We told them they could become us and we’d be stronger. They wanted to protect you, so they agreed."

Ptonomy relays that to Syd.

"So— _You're_ my rational mind?" David asks, amazed. "But he was British."

"He was tiny," Divad defends. "A drop in the bucket. He only existed for what, a few minutes? An hour max. He fused with me, so now I remember finding you in that mental coffin and helping you with the classroom, even though Farouk still had me trapped. It's a little weird, having a bunch of double memories, but— We got used to it."

Ptonomy relays this, and then turns back to Divad. "So how complete are the fusions? Is it possible for David's rational mind to separate himself from you?"

"I told you, _I'm_ David's rational mind," Divad says, annoyed. Honestly, that should've been obvious. Ptonomy even described him that way, as the rational, logical part of David.

"And all these fragments," Ptonomy says. "Did any of them fuse with David?"

"Why the hell would they do that?" Divad asks. "No one wanted to be tortured. And yeah, it's not like being us was great either, but—" He shrugs. 

"How many fragments have there been?" David asks.

"We didn't keep count," Divad says.

"A dozen?" David prompts. "Two dozen?"

Divad shifts uncomfortably. "Look, we stopped counting after a hundred."

David stares at him. "I have no idea how to feel about this."

"What's there to feel?" Divad defends. He slaps his chest. "I got the thinkers, Dvd got the fighters. All it did was make us more ourselves."

David rubs at his head like he's getting a headache. "Where did they even come from?"

This is why Divad didn't want to talk about it. "You," Divad admits.

"Me?" David asks, flatly.

"Our system," Divad amends. "I mean, it wasn't like— Your rational mind wasn't your whole rational mind. He was just— A fragment of your— Ability to, uh— Think rationally."

"And you never thought giving the fragments back to me might help?" David asks, upset.

"They broke off for a hell of a good reason," Divad defends. "They didn't want to go back and— It wasn't safe for them to just hang around."

David takes slow breaths. "So if I'm understanding all this, which is shocking since apparently _my own ability to think just up and walked away from me_ — A good part of why I, David, fell apart so badly that you two needed to lock me up inside my own body, was because the functional parts of me didn't want to be me anymore."

"That's pretty much how DID works," Divad points out.

That does not make David any happier.

"Monster in our head," Divad reminds him. "Monster in our head specifically torturing _David_ , of course you didn't want to be you anymore! That's— What we are! That's the whole thing!"

"And you can't just— Send them back?" David asks, tersely.

"What part of fused do you not understand?" Divad asks, impatiently. "Look, I'm sorry, but— We wouldn't’ve had to scoop all those fragments up if you didn't keep breaking them off in the first place, and that wouldn't have happened without the fucking shit beetle making our life a living hell. And besides— Farouk already patched you back up."

David stares at him. "You call this patched?" he asks, pointing at himself.

"Hey, you made it through ten years of torture without us," Divad says. "Well, four years of torture and then, uh, six years of being David the zombie, but— Let me tell you, the David you were before college could not have managed even that much."

"I destroyed our life," David protests. "You were furious with me for that."

"Yeah," Divad admits. "But— It wasn't your fault. The shit beetle was torturing you, and you didn't have us, you had no idea about anything." 

Realizing how strong David is makes it so much more obvious how sick David was at his worst. How much of a— Non-functioning disaster he was. It didn't take an insane amount of Haldol to make David unable to tie their shoes, not back then. He was just—

God, there was just— Barely anything left of him by the end. And then Farouk found a way to give back so much of what he took away. Even if he just did it so he could take it all away again— It kills Divad that the monster figured out how to do what he and Dvd never could.

"We did it because we had to," Divad says, needing David to understand. "The fragments wouldn't go back to you. Fusing's a two-way thing. You were the sinking ship everyone was jumping off of, they weren't gonna get back onboard."

"Is that why you didn't try to fuse with David?" Ptonomy asks. 

"Yeah," Divad sighs. "Look, other systems, their head is the one safe place they’ve got. We never had that."

"How about the period between your system's creation and when you were old enough to read psychology books in the library?" Ptonomy asks. "What happened to the alters created then?"

"We hid them in our bedroom," Divad admits. "But it wasn't good, keeping a bunch of terrified little kids cooped up in there. Once we figured out what to do— After they became us, we didn't have to— They didn't have to hide anymore."

"They or we?" Ptonomy presses. 

"Me," Divad insists. "We fused. It's just— Confusing, explaining all this. Remembering. Me and Dvd have a lot of— Extra memories."

"That's a common problem around here," Ptonomy points out. “One more question. Why is David’s rational mind the only alter that David remembers?”

“Because Farouk always made David forget,” Divad admits, unhappily. “He just— Didn’t get the chance the last time, not with Cary’s halo in the way.” It's a tiny solace, a drop in the bucket to still have that one shared memory with David. But remembering being able to help David, and David being grateful, David thinking fondly of that part of Divad— That means a lot to Divad. A hell of a lot. 

Ptonomy relaxes, apparently satisfied. "Thank you for being honest with David about all of that."

"So that's where he got it from?" Lenny asks. Divad's startled to hear her talk, she's barely said a word to them since breakfast. "The cocktails. Mixing people together."

"Maybe," Divad shrugs. "He didn't really fuse all the Davids back together, though. We're still us. It's just David who got changed."

Ptonomy gives Lenny an expectant look, and probably tells her something over the mainframe. Whatever it is, Lenny's annoyed by it. Divad relates.

"That's the same thing he did to me," Lenny admits, finally looking David in the eye. "David— We gotta talk about Benny."

"Now?" David asks, overwhelmed.

"Captain's orders," Lenny sighs. "Look, I'd be just as happy as Divad to ignore all this. But you gotta know about the fragment stuff and you gotta know about me."

"I already know you're a cocktail," David points out. "We're both cocktails."

"Yeah, but— I think we were wrong about what's in my cocktail," Lenny admits.

David frowns at her, confused. "You're Lenny and Benny."

"That's the thing," Lenny says, reluctantly. "We don't— Actually know what Benny was like. If you loved him— Even if you were a self-destructive mess— We need— _I_ need to know how much of me is actually Benny so I can figure out how much is actually Lenny and how much— Is your asshole parasite."

"You're not Farouk," David insists, worried.

"Look, your sister's hot, I'd bang her in a heartbeat if either of us had a working snatch," Lenny says. "But I'm not hugging her for foreplay. I'm doing it to stop my mind from falling apart. But it’s still falling apart, so— If there’s gonna be two Farouks wandering around Division 3, one of them _in the mainframe_ , we gotta know that. Now."

David's eyes go wide. "Oh."

Lenny looks to the ceiling. "And we need this guy to save the world? The world is so fucked."

Divad should probably be offended by that on David's behalf, but honestly? He feels the same.


	102. Day 11: A shattered mess that used to be a person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: self-harm urges

David does at least get one of his customary breaks before he has to plunge into a dissection of yet another part of his own life that only other people remember. He's restless and wants to leave the lab, needs to be somewhere else, somewhere _away_ , but he can't because he doesn't want to disturb Dvd when he's already so upset. He doesn't want to risk-- Making Dvd worse.

This must be how Dvd and Divad have felt about him. Not just since they got the crown, but all their lives. Life. All their _life_.

So David wanders around the lab. At least it's a big space, despite being full of equipment and furniture and people. Technically he doesn't have to sit with anyone if he's not sitting down. He knows that argument wouldn't hold up for a second if he tried to actually use it, but he tells himself it's true anyway and no one corrects him. Usually Cary's in his work area but he's inside of Kerry right now so no one's there so that's where David ends up.

Today was going-- It was a rough start but it was going okay, he was feeling-- Like he had a grasp on things. Like he was making progress. And now-- He stands in front of the two trays of ceramic pieces that used to be his lamp, and-- 

No one's glued it back together yet. He thought they'd have started on it by now, but-- Maybe they can't. Maybe they shouldn't. He reaches for a piece, but hesitates, feeling-- The urge to crush it into countless tiny fragments to see if they can put _that_ back together. He'd like to see them try. Maybe he should take the trays up to the garden and throw all the pieces off the roof, watch them fall and smash one by one. Division 3 can vacuum up the dust that's left, like they vacuumed up the black dust that used to be people. Isn't that what he is, a shattered mess that used to be a person?

He turns away from the trays before he does something stupid. He needs to not do something stupid. Like pulling the cover off the amplification tank and jumping in to recover the memories locked away by his traumatic amnesia. He really needs to not do that. There is no way that would help, even though it feels like the only thing that would help. He just needs to _remember_. He _needs to_ and he _can't_ and it's _killing_ him.

He turns away again and runs right into Syd.

"Sorry," he says, stumbling back, automatically raising his hands in surrender, apology, like he did the first time they met and he was trying to offer her a Twizzler. He has nothing to offer her now, nothing, why is she still here?

"It's okay," Syd says, long past being skittish the way she was her first day in Clockworks. She doesn't scream when she's touched anymore, even though she still feels needles under her skin. She changed so much the year he was gone and he didn't change at all. Because he never lived that year. He's Past David, living Future David's life with all these Future People.

"Do you want to talk about-- Any of that?" Syd offers, obviously concerned. "That was-- A few shocks all at once."

Even though he knows she's right, he shakes his head once, tightly. He doesn't feel able to talk, not about any of that, not about Benny even though he'll have to talk about Benny because Lenny needs it.

He rubs at his temples. 

“Getting a headache?” Syd asks, sympathetic.

“My head should be too empty to ache,” David mutters. “What exactly is the point of telling me even more things I can’t remember?” So much for not talking. Like he has any control over his body, much less his brain.

“Don’t you want to know about Benny?” Syd asks.

“I thought I already did,” David sighs. He glances over at Lenny, sitting on the sofa with Amy and Divad. It gives him— Weird feelings, thinking— 

He can’t— He can’t even start to untangle that massive knot yet. 

He leans back against the counter, closes his eyes, and rubs at his head. He hears Syd walk over to the medicine cabinet and open it. A pill bottle rattles familiarly. He hears her move to the sink, fill a cup with water. He hears her walk back and put the cup on the counter beside him, and then the whisper-soft taps of two pills being put down.

David really wants to refuse her kindness. He feels so much and all of it hurts and at least physical pain is-- Something he can control. Like when he used to cut himself with the dullest blade because that felt the worst. He hasn't done that in a long time because he found other ways to hurt himself. To punish himself. But he thinks about it now and wonders what the edge of a piece of broken ceramic would feel like. 

Fuck. Fuck, this is a shame attack, too. Have all of his shocks triggered shame attacks? It was hard to tell before, when his whole life was just one long shame attack. But now he has actual moments where he doesn't feel like he needs to punish himself verbally and physically and any way he can. It hurts so much, being yanked back down after breaking the surface and finally getting a clear breath. He knows he doesn’t have to feel this way anymore but he does and it’s— Excruciating.

He forces himself to take the pills and hates himself for it. How dare he do anything to stop his suffering? What's wrong with him is that _he's not broken enough._

God, shame really is what's eating him alive. It really is the parasite that's feeding on him, huge and bloated on his pain. It really is what makes him want to kill himself. 

He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to be broken, he doesn't want to suffer. He doesn't want it and it's not who he is. _NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO._

He takes a deep, shaky breath, lets it out. His eyes dampen, but that's okay. It feels like relief. He looks over at Syd. She's watching him, quiet, concerned, patient. Letting him work through it, because-- He needs to be able to recognize what he's feeling and manage his reactions. He needs to stop punishing himself. No one can do those things for him.

He keeps breathing, keeps refusing the shame. _Fuck his shame._ He should be as angry at his shame as he is at the shit beetle. They're both parasites, trying to steal his strength for their own. He's stronger than both of them and they can _fuck off_.

The pressure in his head suddenly gives and he needs to sit down. He makes it to Cary's chair and slumps, feeling like he just went through a battle. Maybe he did. He still feels ashamed because he always feels ashamed but it's weaker now, it's a level he can manage. It was a battle and he won it. Nothing can take that victory away from him.

Syd pulls over another chair, Kerry's chair, and sits with him. And like Kerry, she just keeps him company, stays with him. 

Like Syd used to do in Clockworks, like Lenny used to do. Lenny and Syd and Kerry, all of them just-- Quietly sharing their love with him, even when he felt utterly unable to accept it. It overwhelms him, suddenly, all that love, all that gentle kindness, and his eyes tear up and spill over. 

He thinks— Even without holding his hand over his heart, he can feel them there.

He wipes his eyes and tries to collect himself. He hopes Dvd is okay after hearing all that. And Divad. He's sorry for hurting his system. He's supposed to do that, apologize, even though-- They haven't agreed on those words, even though-- They need them. He needs them.

"I guess it was a few shocks," David admits, his voice rough, cracking.

"Mm hm," Syd hums, nodding her strong agreement. 

David gives a dry, breathy laugh, caught by the understatement of it all. God, he just found out that his entire self has been-- Shattered into tiny pieces and taken by other people who are also himself, except not because who the hell would ever want to be him? And how did Farouk even manage to patch him up? With copied memories and god knows what else. 

"I guess-- You guys were really-- Trying to keep it simple for me, with the whole brothers thing," David admits, tightly. He gets that now. He was starting to get it with the Dvd revelation but— 

"It's a pretty big mental adjustment, going from-- A separate person to a system," Syd says. "Especially with everything your system has been through, that you've been through. I guess-- The brothers idea was a stepping stone. And it's not-- Entirely untrue. All of you are Amy's brothers. The four of you grew up together, you shared the same parents. You being adopted didn't change that. All of you being identities shouldn't either."

"Yeah," David admits, seeing the sense in that. Divad and Dvd must have been desperate for anything that would help coax David back to them, even if the full truth was bound to make the idea of being brothers-- A very poor fit. 

"But we're not brothers," David says, needing to make the admission aloud. On a deep and fundamental level, they are not brothers. "We’re a system and that— Whatever that means, it's a lot more than just being people who happen to share a body." People who happen to share a body can’t— Swap parts of themselves. They can’t— Be one person, and then somehow be another person.

His rational mind was just— _his_ rational mind, some amount of David the identity’s ability to think rationally. And then David freaked out so badly in that mental coffin that part of himself just decided to not be him anymore. Not being him meant it was able to be calm and helpful and guide him through a lot of confusion.

And when that was done— That part of himself agreed to fuse with Divad. So that part of David is now Divad. Permanently, or— As permanent as anything in his life could possibly be. 

It's really-- Dizzying, when he tries to wrap his brain around it. Their brain, he supposes. Their mind, their life, their body. He gets that now in a way he didn't before. Because they're not brothers, they're-- A co-conscious, telepathic system that shares everything. It's no wonder the entire idea of boundaries has been-- Basically absent.

But accepting that— The more he accepts what he is, what’s happened to him— The less he feels like he’s anything at all.

“If parts of myself can just— Walk away from me, then— What does it even mean to be me?” David asks, at a loss.

“I’m trying to understand that myself,” Syd admits. “You’re a very complicated person, David.”

“Complicated,” David echoes, strained. “Complicated was— Having mental powers and a mental parasite. This is—“ He casts about for the right word. “Labyrinthine.” And he’s— Lost in the middle. “Lenny said, um— She said I’m the ship.”

“The ship?” Syd asks, an adorable furrow to her brow. 

That’s right, she wasn’t there for that conversation yesterday. She was— Somewhere else. He never asked her where she went, he was— Reeling from too many things, like he is now. “The ship of Theseus?”

“Ah,” Syd said, understanding. Of course she knew about all that. “You are the ship,” she agrees, considering the idea. 

“Lenny brought it up,” David tells her. “She said she was, um, learning philosophy in the mainframe so she could help me.” Which makes David want to help her even more than he already does, even though he’s dreading what it will mean for himself. What _he’ll_ have to learn to help Lenny. 

“It’s about— Continuity through change,” Syd says.

“Where did you go yesterday?” David asks, admittedly changing the subject.

“Oh,” Syd says, surprised. “Nowhere, really. I just— Needed to think.”

“You were gone a long time."

“I had a lot of thinking to do.”

David thinks that’s a fair point. He’s certainly had plenty to think about, too much if he’s honest. “So what did you think about?” 

Syd looks— A lot less eager to talk, all of a sudden. David instinctively stills, worried he just— Said the wrong thing. _Wrong_ , he remembers her saying in the loop, cold and cutting, nothing he said was ever right—

“How to make a choice I could live with,” Syd says, then looks concerned. “David?”

“Sorry, I just— Remembered something I don’t want to remember,” David admits. Ptonomy said they could talk about what happened with Syd in private, but— They already have to untangle Benny and Dvd needs help and god, they’ve barely done anything for David’s possession trauma today except make it worse. When will they even have the time? He doesn’t feel remotely ready to talk about any of that with Syd. 

But Syd always reads him so well. “About me?” she asks, regretful.

David nods.

“It’s okay,” Syd soothes. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”

David wishes that wasn’t such a relief. “Sorry,” he says, hating that— He can’t just forgive her and move on and be happy. He just wants to be better, for everything to be better, but— There’s no way out but through. 

He turns away from Syd, just enough, and tries to gather himself again. He really needs— Comfort. Touch. And he knows if he asks, he could have that. Syd would hold his hand, she already has. Because she’s not skittish anymore. She isn’t afraid of touch even though it’s uncomfortable for her. She had a year to become the her she is now. To become— Future Syd.

Is Syd the ship? The Syd who loved him, the Syd who punished him, the Syd with one arm— Are they all the same Syd? Does she have— Continuity? He still doesn’t understand anything that happened with Future-Future Syd. He doesn’t know why she did any of the things she did, why— She let Amy— Why she let _him_ —

He missed so much in the year he was gone. How much did he miss in all the years ahead of them? Will being with Syd mean-- Being with the person she was-- The person she _will_ be-- The person-- She would have been? If Syd's therapy is meant to-- Make her not become the person she became—

He's starting to think that no amount of painkillers is going to make his head stop aching. And he's supposed to be clearing his head for the Benny stuff, not making it worse.

"David," Syd says, concerned.

He can't-- "I just, um-- Have to--" He stands up, hesitates, and then walks away, feeling awful for it but unable to-- It's too much. 

But everything's too much. And he just-- Hasn't felt this-- If he could just _leave_ \-- But he can't leave, he can't-- 

Wait. He _can_. He just has to--

He doesn't do what Divad did. He's not going to just drop their body like that. But it's all he can do to sit down in the nearest chair, and then-- He's out. His headache, the pain of the crown, the overwhelming pressure building under his skin-- They're gone and it's such an enormous relief. He doesn't say anything, just-- walks as far away from everyone as he can and tries to just-- Exist without-- Feeling like he's going to explode.

"David!" Syd calls, alarmed to see his-- Their body suddenly unconscious. She rushes over to it, tries to shake it awake. Everyone else is worried, too, standing up, walking over. He tries not to think about Syd's hands on him. It's not even really him.

"He left their body," Ptonomy tells her. "David?" he calls, searching for him, but David hasn't said anything so they don't know--

"He's by our bed," Divad says, giving him away. When Ptonomy comes over, Divad follows him.

"Must you?" David mutters.

"Hey, this is exactly why I didn't want to tell you any of that," Divad says.

"So you were just gonna keep lying to my face?" David says, even more angry.

"You weren't ready," Divad insists. "You think we want to lie to you? You used to know all of this. How do you think it makes us feel to have to tell you what you should already know, things that are so much of who we are, and then have to hear how much that hurts you?"

David doesn't know what to say to that. He hugs himself, pushes back against the corner he's tucked himself into. 

"David, go back in our body," Divad says, tiredly.

David shakes his head. "Give it to Dvd. Or take it yourself, I cut you short."

"You need someone to comfort you," Divad insists. "And I wish it could be me but--"

"Divad's right," Ptonomy says. "We know you're struggling with a lot. We heard all of that. You're fighting so hard to not hurt yourself. But isolating yourself isn't the answer. Let us help."

"I have to do this myself," David insists. It's in his therapy list, he has to-- Manage his reactions.

"You do need to learn to manage your reactions," Ptonomy agrees. "But part of that is knowing when you can't manage on your own. It's okay to ask for help. That's what all of us are here for. Remember the love advice? If the problems are big, you should get help. That's part of giving yourself healthy love."

"'I have the right to say no' is in there, too," David says, angrily. "But I can't say no to any of this.”

"You don't want to talk about Benny," Ptonomy says, understanding. "You're afraid of what you'll learn."

David doesn't answer. Ptonomy heard his thoughts, he knows already, they all know. And it doesn't make a single bit of difference. 'No' is a hobby, it doesn't mean anything to anyone but himself. And even he doesn't listen when he tells himself no. He tells himself no to feeling awful all the time, but he still feels awful.

"Look, I'm not thrilled about it either," Lenny says, coming up next to Ptonomy. "But talking about Benny's what we both need to get healthy so our 'no's can matter a hell of a lot more. So let's just rip the band-aid off already and get this over with. Then we can get back to your giant list of mental illnesses and psychological problems. That's way more fun, am I right?"

That drags a dry laugh out of David. 

"Sorry you lost your cruise director today," Lenny says. "I guess-- I've been dealing with my own bunch of shocks. But I should've done it with you. I pulled away so you did, too. I'm sorry."

David gives her a meaningful look, but-- She can't see it. He looks over at their unconscious body. He's not thrilled to have to get back inside it. But if he doesn't-- Lenny can't see him. Amy can't hug him. He was angry with them for not telling him about Dvd, and-- He didn't want to take Amy away from Lenny, but-- He missed them.

"We missed you, too," Amy says. She's next to their body, her hand on its shoulder, steadying it. Syd's not touching it anymore. "So come back, okay?"

David can't possibly say no to that. But he doesn't want-- He hates the feeling of-- Losing control of himself. It's been a while since it got this bad, maybe since-- He was in the cell. Things were-- They were bad in there, really bad. But they're better now. He's doing better, even if-- It doesn't always feel that way. He’s working hard to not hurt himself even though he really, really wants to. But it's-- It _is_ too much for him to manage on his own. He should have asked for help.

"Remember what helps you stay," Ptonomy says, gently. "What's a good thing that will help you?"

Amy, he thinks, relief washing through him. He takes a step, then two, then strides back to their body. He hesitates again, looking down at it, and then grits his teeth and sits down into it. 

It hurts. His head hurts, and his whole body is so tense and miserable-- But he stands up and Amy is waiting for him. 

"I'm here," Amy soothes, holding him. 

David takes a sobbing breath and holds her back.


	103. Day 11: Is this you giving us your approval?

It's hard watching Amy and Lenny comfort David when Divad wants to do the job himself.

It was always hard having to watch Dvd be the one to comfort David, to stand apart from them as Dvd soothed David's troubled thoughts. But as Dvd said, they made their choices: Divad chose the world and Dvd chose David. Now they have the chance to make new choices, but it's going to take work to make their new lives real. It's going to take time and forgiveness and all the things in their new foundations. 

Divad can't even go and comfort Dvd. Kerry's the one doing that, and of course she's doing as good a job with Dvd as she did with David. Divad peeked in on them and saw them sitting together on the floor, Dvd quietly reading over Kerry's shoulder, Kerry waiting until he finished to turn each page. Dvd cried again from listening to David's breakdown, from not being able to do what he's always done. Because he can't do what he's always done anymore, none of them can.

Oliver and Ptonomy are sitting quietly together again. Divad's pretty sure they're doing mainframe work. Oliver's relaying Syd's thoughts now as well as their system's, and Ptonomy must be working hard to prepare for Dvd's embodiment and session time. Or maybe they're preparing for the Benny conversation. Divad knows he's going to have to be in the spotlight for that. Dvd could help, but in the shape he's in, talking about Benny would probably be as unhelpful for him as him talking to Syd was earlier.

But Divad's not the only one stuck on the outside, and at least he has the excuse of being a mental projection. Syd's sitting alone and looking quietly miserable, and that's not how this is supposed to work. No one should be sitting alone. The problem is that Divad is only a mental projection, and he can't talk to Syd without the relay even though-- He wants to.

Ptonomy's working so hard to help their whole system, Divad doesn't want to interrupt him. But maybe Oliver-- 'Oliver?'

Oliver opens his eyes and looks over. "Excuse me," Oliver tells everyone in the sitting area, and stands and walks over to the table where Divad and Syd are sitting. "May I join you two?"

"Oh," Syd startles. She looks around the table, looking at the empty chairs and obviously wondering which one is occupied. "Uh, of course."

Oliver gives her a pleasant smile and sits next to her. Divad moves to the seat on the other side of her. "I'm here," he tells Oliver.

"Divad is over there," Oliver says, pointing at him. "He'd like to speak with you, but he needs me to relay for him verbally. Is that all right?"

Syd looks at the chair beside her, empty to her of course, and then back to Oliver. She seems very surprised, but-- Not unhappy about it. She nods to Oliver, then turns back to the chair. "Divad," she greets, cautiously. "Are you, uh, doing okay?"

"I saw what happened with you and David," Divad tells her, and Oliver relays. "I'm sorry. I know how hard all this must be for you."

"It's not easy," Syd admits, quietly. She glances at David. "How about you? I know-- All of this must be very difficult for you and Dvd. Trying to get David back."

"What was it Amy said?" Divad asks, and Oliver relays. "Sometimes siblings are apart, and then they're back together. Even if we're not actually brothers-- We’re back together now, we just-- Have a lot of healing to do." He pauses. "Like you and David."

Syd raises her eyebrows. "Is this you giving us your approval?"

"Maybe," Divad admits, and Oliver relays. "Look, honestly-- In a lot of ways, it would be easier if-- We could keep everything to our system like we always did. But that wasn't good for us, any of us. David loves you, and as long as he wants you in our life-- Then I'm okay with that."

Syd looks deeply touched by that. "Thank you, Divad. That means a lot to me."

"That doesn't mean we're gonna let you hurt him," Divad warns, because he has to. "It's our job to-- Help David be the David he wants to be. And he doesn't want to-- Be the David that accepts being hurt because he thinks love is letting people hurt him."

"Should you be telling me that?" Syd asks, warily. "David doesn't like it when you two tell me his secrets."

"He already told you," Divad reminds her. "Maybe not in so many words, but-- It's in his foundation and I know you're studying that just like we are."

"That's true," Syd admits. "So, um, maybe we can work together? To help David be his own David. I want to do more, but--" She glances at David again. "I have to let him come to me."

"You do," Divad agrees. Ptonomy made it very clear to them early on that trying to force David back into their old system wouldn't work, and he was right. Not just because David is different now, but because-- Their old system wasn't worth saving. It's-- Like a fragment. It was there to help them, it did its job, and now-- It's done. And quite honestly-- Divad is glad. "We've all made a lot of mistakes," he admits. "But you're trying to be better. David sees that, and-- So do I. Thank you for the therapy list. I think it'll help all of us a lot."

Syd's pleased, but shy about it. "I just wrote what David's been doing."

"You've been paying attention," Divad says, and Oliver relays. Like Divad has, even though it took a while for him to accept help himself. "Even without hearing his thoughts-- You understand him. And I think-- You accept us. We haven't had-- It's, uh-- It means a lot to us. To me." He pauses. "Can I see it? The sketch?"

Syd glances at David again. "I guess you heard my conversation with him?"

"Watching over David is what I do," Divad says, and then-- "It's what I did. Though, honestly-- Even though-- I want to be myself-- We're a system, that's what we are." Dvd might be afraid they’re not, he obviously feels abandoned, but-- Divad wants to be with his system, he always has. "We just need to figure out-- What our healthy multiplicity is."

Syd's posture eases and her expression softens. She opens her notebook and then places it in front of Divad.

Divad's used to seeing Syd's drawings of their system. She drew them so many times over the year she was in Clockworks with them. But it was always obvious that she was drawing David. And now for the first time, he looks at Syd's drawing of them and sees himself.

This, right here, is a drawing of _Divad_. Being himself. Not him pretending to be David, like the photos in Amy's albums, but him being himself.

He must stare at it in silence for too long, because Syd frowns, concerned. "Divad? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Divad says, and Oliver relays. "It's, um-- It's really good."

"Thank you," Syd says, pleased. "Um, David already asked for it, but-- I guess that means all of you get it?"

It does, and yet-- "Maybe-- You could draw another one just for me," Divad says. 

Syd smiles. "I'd be happy to. David wants me to draw him again, too. And I'm going to draw Dvd, unless-- Do you think he'll mind?"

"Probably," Divad admits. "But you should do it anyway. If me and David get drawings and he doesn't, none of us will ever hear the end of it."

Syd laughs. "I guess he's the reason your system shares everything?"

"He's always the loudest about it," Divad says, with exasperated fondness. "But he just wants everything to be fair. Honestly, I think-- Maybe he does that to make things fair for himself, because-- He sacrifices so much for David. But when we share, he gets what he needs. He yells at me for being selfish, but— That’s just to cover up the fact that he feels selfish."

"It sounds like you've been paying attention to Dvd," Syd offers.

"Of course," Divad says, and Oliver relays. "I mean-- We're a system. I just thought-- Helping David was the only thing I was for."

"But it's not," Syd says.

"It's not," Divad agrees. "I think-- If we all get through this, get the crown off-- I want to finish my degree." He hesitates, thinking-- Should it be 'their degree'? But no. It's his, just his. "I don't know if you heard-- I wanted to go to med school?"

"To stop Farouk?" Syd asks.

"Yeah," Divad says. "But also-- We were never allowed to use our powers to help anyone, Mom and Dad said it was too dangerous. All of us hated that, even Dvd. But I thought-- Maybe our inside powers were safe. If they just looked like-- Knowledge, from the outside-- I thought maybe, one day, when the monster was gone, we could help people that way."

Syd’s impressed. "Do you still want to do that? You don't have to hide your powers anymore."

"That's true," Divad agrees, and Oliver relays. "I don't know if I still want to be a doctor. But I want to finish what I started, I want my college degree."

"I never finished mine either," Syd admits. "I was kind of a punk growing up, but I had good grades and my mom knew all the right people. I think-- I would've done pretty well for myself, but-- Mom was sick. And after she died-- All the things she pushed me to do, everything she cared about-- I just felt like, what was the point? And there was this guy, he had a thing for my mom like a lot of men. He was powerful, they always were, and cruel. And after she died-- I think he was angry at her for getting away. So he went after me."

"You never told all this to David," Divad says. 

"No," Syd admits. 

"So what happened to him?" Divad asks, wondering if an omega-level mutant should pay him a visit.

"Oh, he pissed off one of the leaders of an international paramilitary organization," Syd says, cooly. "He's not a problem anymore."

Divad can't help but think of Syd's childhood revenges, and Future Syd's revenge on David. David's starting to wonder about all of that, and Divad isn't looking forward to that conversation. "Is he dead?" Divad asks, with morbid curiosity.

"No, he just wishes he was," Syd says, and declines to elaborate. "I don't know if I'd want to finish my degree. Maybe? I was an English major, that was what my mom wanted for me, of course. And I like writing, I'm good at it, but-- I don't know. The world feels a lot bigger to me now."

"You could change majors," Divad suggests. "You should do what's right for you, not what your mom wanted. It's your life, right?"

"It is," Syd says, pleased by the thought. "Thank you, Divad. You're right. I need to think about what I want. I, ah, do need something for my wish list."

"Well," Divad says, feeling brave. "If we all survive this and everything works out-- And we both go back to school-- We could be study buddies."

Syd looks touched. "I'd like that very much." Then she hesitates. "I know I said-- That we need to be friends for David's sake, but-- I hope we can be friends because that's what's right for both of us. I-- Haven't had many friends."

"Neither have I," Divad admits. "I was always pretending to be David, and-- We didn't want to drag anyone else into our personal hell. For our protection and theirs."

"Now that Farouk is out of you, he's everyone's problem," Syd says. "Obviously that's not a great thing for the world, but-- I truly believe that-- If we keep getting better, he won't be able to hurt us anymore."

"I really want to believe that," Divad says, and Oliver relays. "The things he did to us— I still don't understand why any of it had to happen. We never even knew our real dad, this whole revenge thing-- It's crazy."

"Crazy might not be the best term to use," Syd says. "But-- If you ask me, I think Amahl Farouk is-- Mundane." She says the word like an insult.

"You know he just heard that, right?" Divad says, and Oliver relays.

"Good," Syd says, firmly. "I want him to hear it. You know what he is? He's just like all the men who came to my mom's salons, looking to take her down. They all thought they were gods, too. All they really were was pathetic and they knew it. That's why they did everything they could to make themselves look so big and important. Reality was too humiliating for them."

Divad always thought Syd was a little terrifying. It's kind of amazing as long as they're not on the receiving end. "I really hope you don't have to regret saying that."

"Haven't you heard?" Syd asks. "When someone hurts me, I hurt them back with interest. I always have. If Farouk thinks he knows me so well, he should know that."

"Maybe you should put that in your wish list," Divad suggests, wide-eyed.

"You know, I think I will," Syd says, and takes her notebook back. She flips to her last round of foundation work. "My wish list. Go back to college. Pick a new major. Graduate. Make Amahl Farouk wish he was dead. Not in that order." She puts her pen down, looking very satisfied. 

"Not-- Kill Amahl Farouk?" Divad suggests. That's what he'd want to put on his, now that he thinks about it.

"Oh, he definitely needs to die," Syd agrees. "But first I want him to wish he was dead. Men like him, those big game hunters? The only thing they understand is power. So I want him to feel as weak as he's made us feel."

"Okay," Divad says, considering that. "If we're a team, then-- We can make it a one-two punch." He feels giddy, talking about all this, but-- It feels really good. Just-- Fuck the shit beetle. Fuck Amahl Farouk. He _should_ feel as weak as he's made everyone else feel, because he doesn't understand shame any more than he understands real love. And then he should die, because the world is absolutely better off without that monster in it. He can't think of any idea more rational than that.

He summons his mental personal notebook and opens to his last round of foundation work. "Kill Amahl Farouk," he writes, after: 'I want a degree with Divad Haller on it.' It's a little-- Stark, after the items about his new future, but-- It's very satisfying to write that, to finally put his anger where it belongs. "If this is what it's like to be your study buddy, our professors are going to be terrified of us."

Syd laughs, genuine and open. "My professors were already terrified of me."

"Mine were, too," Divad admits, and Oliver relays. "They always wanted to know how I knew all the things I did, things no one else knew. I told them I read a lot of research papers in my spare time, but-- They never really believed me."

"As far as the world's concerned, we're just superstition, make-believe," Syd says. "The war's over, but mutants are still everyone's dirty little secret."

"Cary wants to change that," Divad says. They talked about it a little, between all the science stuff. "He says the war won't truly be over until mutants can live freely without hiding their powers."

"He doesn't think small," Syd says, surprised. "He's probably right, but-- I always felt keeping my powers a secret protected me."

"That's what we thought, too," Divad says. "But if there'd been anyone else, if we'd found other mutants like us sooner, they could have helped us like everyone here has helped us. Maybe things would have been worse if Division 3 found us, maybe it was all for the best, but-- We were so alone."

"That doesn't make any sense," Syd says, concerned. "Your system is so powerful. You must have been able to hear that there were other mutants out there. Even other telepaths."

"But we didn't," Divad insists, and Oliver relays. "We were alone. We didn't even-- We couldn't even find any other systems. We thought-- They were so rare--"

"DID isn't that rare," Syd says. "And Divad, you were in mental hospitals. Of course there were other systems around you. And there must have been other mutants, it's just-- Impossible that you didn't hear any other systems or mutants in all that time."

"But we looked," Divad insists, certain. "David listened for them, but he never--" Realization dawns on him. "Shit. Shit, of course."

"What is it?" Syd asks.

"The monster made David forget," Divad sighs. "And even if David managed to tell us-- Farouk could make us forget, too."

"He did say that," Syd says, soberly. "I'm sorry, Divad."

"We knew there were blanks,” Divad admits. “But-- Even when David forgot and I forgot, at least Dvd remembered. But he must have made Dvd forget those moments, too. And it wasn't-- Sometimes we knew we forgot because Amy or our parents or someone else knew what we forgot, and they said something or David heard them thinking about it. It was just-- Part of the torture, letting us know we'd forgotten."

"God, he's really the worst," Syd mutters.

"He is," Divad agrees, heartfelt. And then he realizes something else. "Shit. God, how am I so stupid?"

"Divad?" Syd prompts, worried.

"Last year, when Farouk-- When he made Amy tell David we were adopted," Divad says. "Me and Dvd didn't know either. And that's-- Impossible. Just like the other mutants and systems-- We must have heard our parents and Amy thinking about us being adopted. But we didn't remember David hearing that and telling us. And everything was so awful-- It was just one more shock."

"Your system doesn't do well with shocks," Syd says, understanding. "Of course you weren't thinking clearly. And then when you got David back, and your system was taken-- And you were worried about David and you were dealing with so much--"

"You're right," Divad acknowledges, and Oliver relays. "Of course you're right, it's just--" God, this is how David feels, fighting against the void of his amnesia. Divad knows, he's heard it over and over. "I don't even-- Know how much we forgot. What else is missing. I've just been so focused on David, on keeping us safe and alive and-- I never-- Wanted to think about-- What we went through, what-- _I_ went through. What we should have known and-- Just didn't."

"Because he took it away," Syd says. "Whatever could have truly helped you, he took away."

"He did," Divad says, the horror of it sinking in. "And that means-- He only left us with-- The ideas that-- He knew would hurt us." God, what else did they learn and forget? How many times did they get close to saving themselves, only to be sabotaged from the inside?

And that means-- It truly was impossible for them to make the right decisions. Absolutely impossible, when Farouk actively prevented them from even learning what the right decisions were. When-- Farouk was in their head, carving them into what he wanted them to be, right from the start. Cutting away piece after piece until the only choices they could make were the ones he let them make.

Their old system wasn't a fragment. It was a torture chamber.

"Divad?" Syd calls, concerned. 

"I'm, um-- Having a shock," Divad admits. God, they can't all break down at the same time. Their whole system really is two trays full of ceramic pieces.

"Excuse me," Oliver says to Syd, then turns to Divad. "Divad, it's all right. David and Dvd are both being comforted. It's safe for you to let yourself be comforted as well."

"I'm just a mental projection," Divad says, tightly. "We can't tell David, and Dvd-- He doesn't want to talk to me, much less comfort me."

Oliver relays that to Syd. 

"Then-- Let us comfort you," Syd offers. "You can make a mental projection of anything you want, right?"

"Yeah," Divad says, and Oliver relays.

"So-- Make a mental projection of a blanket," Syd says. "That always helps David."

Divad does that, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders. 

"I suggest you tell yourself your foundation and mantra," Oliver says. "These are the moments those tools were made for."

"You're right," Divad says, hearing the shock in his voice. He's seen David pull himself back up with his words. Divad needs to do the same. "I am Divad. I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself." God, he needed to make the words his own, but-- It feels like they were custom made for him right now. Because he is Divad, he did survive. He truly did not deserve anything that happened to him. And fuck the shit beetle, he refuses to belong to anyone but himself.

"Excellent," Oliver says. "Keep going."

'Divad is love,' that one-- Divad doesn't feel it enough to rely on it so he skips to his mantra. "There are things I lost that I'll never get back." Like who know how many memories, like their entire life. "But I’m here and I’m not alone." Syd and Oliver are here with him, helping him. Amy and Lenny are helping David. Kerry is helping Dvd. And Ptonomy is going to help all of them heal together.

He skips the mantra's love section. "I'm strong enough to heal," he tells himself, willing himself to believe it. "I'm not doing this alone." That one he believes. He truly does believe it. "I don't have to hurt David and I never did," he says, feeling that even more deeply than before. "I'm not going to be forgotten," he says, even though it's his own memory that he fears.

"And again," Oliver says.

Divad runs through them again, through the ones that make him feel calmer, safer. He is Divad, he survived. He didn't deserve what happened to him. He belongs to himself. There are things he lost that he'll never get back, but he's here and he's not alone. 

He runs through the words again, again, again. They help. He's still in shock, but-- The worst of it is passing. 

"That was wonderful, Divad," Oliver praises. "I can tell you've been paying attention, learning from David. You did such a good job."

"Uh, thanks," Divad says, surprised but pleased by the praise. He realizes that he's getting a little compassion therapy, but-- He did do a good job. He did learn from David. Even if it's therapy praise, he earned it. "Thanks, Oliver."

"It was my pleasure," Oliver says. "I'll resume relaying for you, if the two of you would like to continue talking?"

"Yes, thank you, Oliver," Syd says. "Divad, how are you feeling?"

"Wobbly," Divad admits, and Oliver relays. "But, um-- Crisis averted."

"I'm really glad," Syd says, warmly. "How about-- We do what Kerry and Dvd are doing? We'll just sit together until you feel steady again. You can watch me finish my sketch of you."

"I'd like that," Divad says. He needs-- Something to make him feel more solid right now, more real. He's glad Syd can give him that. He's glad David didn't stop loving her, so-- She can be a part of Divad's life now, too.

"Syd," Divad says. "I'm sorry. For the desert. We shouldn't have made you forget, that-- That was really wrong of us."

Syd looks at where he's sitting, obviously trying her best to make eye contact. "Thank you, Divad. It means a lot to me to hear that. Your apology is accepted. And-- I forgive you, okay? I really do."

"Thank you," Divad says, and tugs the blanket close as he settles beside her to watch her draw.


	104. Day 11: You need the truth about Benny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of rape

David is not ready to talk about Benny. He doesn’t see how he’ll ever be ready to talk about Benny. He can’t see what the point is in learning even more about— How he’s hurt himself. They’ve really solidly established that David’s been extremely thorough about hurting himself in every possible way. Remembering how he hurt himself with Benny just cannot make anything about his situation any better.

“I understand how it feels that way,” Ptonomy allows. “But we still have to talk about Benny.”

“Of course we do,” David mutters, sourly. “Tell me, what was the point in making me put ‘I have the right to say no’ in my foundation work if I don’t actually have the right to say no to anything?”

Ptonomy gives him a considering look. “You feel ready to have more control over your therapy. You made your own therapy list, based on Syd’s, and you have concerns about all the areas that need work, about fitting it all in.”

David hardly needs to confirm that when Ptonomy already has all those thoughts on record, but he does anyway. “Yeah, I do. Are you going to tell me I’m too sick for that?”

“Absolutely not,” Ptonomy says. “That list and your concerns are a very good sign. You’re learning the skills you need to be in control of yourself, to be your own David. We all want that very much. But to get there, you need to acknowledge and process your trauma, even the trauma you can’t fully remember. And that includes Benny.”

“So in order to learn how to make decisions for myself, I have to let you decide everything for me?” David asks, annoyed at Ptonomy for being reasonable. He always has to be so reasonable and it pisses David off.

“Consider me your training wheels,” Ptonomy says, unruffled. “You’re not strong enough to ride solo yet. But we got you on the bike and you’re pedaling.”

“Do you have to have a cute metaphor for everything?” David grumbles.

“Do they help you?” Ptonomy asks.

Yes, David thinks, and is annoyed about that, too.

Ptonomy smiles, amused.

“C’mon, band-aid time, remember?” Lenny says. “Let’s rip this thing off already.”

“That reminds me,” Ptonomy says, turning to Lenny. “I believe there’s another band-aid that needs ripping off. How about you show David how it’s done?”

If looks could kill, Ptonomy wouldn’t need to worry about his detachment syndrome anymore. But Lenny sighs in angry surrender.

“So, uh, David,” Lenny starts, forcing her words out. “Look, you know we need to do this to help me, right?”

David nods. She needs to untangle Benny and Lenny— And Farouk. “You’re not Farouk,” he tells her again. It doesn’t make any sense to him that she’s Farouk. As far as he’s concerned, there’s Lenny and there’s Farouk and— Even if it’s hard for him to pull them apart in his own mind— It wasn’t her that did those things. It wasn’t her. She was just a mask, she’s his best friend and he just got her back and he’s not going to let Farouk ruin what they have.

Lenny softens. “You’re sweet, kid. I’m gonna miss hearing your thoughts when you’re better. But I gotta get better too so I can be there for that.”

"You're not dying," David tells her, then hesitates. He looks at Amy and Ptonomy. "You're not dying, right?"

"No," Amy assures him. "But-- This morning, while you were in the garden, there was an incident." She looks across him to Lenny, expectant.

Incident. David hates that word. Doctors and cops and therapists love to call things incidents, especially while privately thinking about how they're David's fault. David always tried not to think about their thoughts because he thought they were delusions, but-- Now that he knows they're not--

No, stay focused. He needs to help Lenny. He looks at her. "So what happened?"

"Look, this whole-- Detachment thing," Lenny starts. "We're still figuring out how to manage it. Our android bodies help a lot, but-- Just having a body's not enough. We gotta use em. But they weren't, like, designed for this. There's a lot we can't do, things that would make us feel more ourselves. And for me-- The things that make me feel like myself-- Mostly they're, uh, junk food, mind altering drugs, and sex."

David knew about the food situation, and drugs-- Well, he supposes that's just another kind of food. And taking mind altering drugs probably wouldn't help when she's trying to stay herself. But sex? He can't help but glance at the android bodies around him.

"Yeah, if you ask me, aesthetically accurate is a joke," Lenny grumbles. "I mean, these things are a real upgrade from the Vermillion, but--" She sighs. "Anyway. So I kinda-- Wore myself out yesterday. But I can't sleep, either. And I'm not a hugger."

"You've been hugging Amy all day," David protests. 

"I don't like people touching me," Lenny says, firmly. "But touch helps Amy and Ptonomy feel like themselves. I tried other stuff, but-- It wasn't enough. So this morning-- I wasn't feeling great. Cary noticed, he tried to help, but-- Then Kerry tried to help. And I, uh-- Took more than she wanted to give."

David frowns, not sure what that means.

"Fuck," Lenny mutters. "Look, I grabbed her pussy, okay? I molested her."

David instinctively shifts closer to Amy, and then feels bad about pulling away. He did that to Dvd and look what happened. But he can't-- 

"Hey, I'm not happy about it either," Lenny says. "You know how many times some asshole took more than I wanted to give? Why do you think I don't like being touched? But banging some hot chick until she loses her mind is one of the only things I've got and-- I needed it so I took it, and then as soon as I got enough to feel like me again I felt like shit."

David wraps his arms around himself, feeling worse himself. It's bad enough that Dvd used sex to control him. If Benny was-- God, was he-- In love with a rapist? Did Benny rape him?

"That's the thing," Lenny says. "Because whatever we remember from before Clockworks, it's not the truth. It's what Farouk put inside us so he could use me to rape you. And maybe the truth is great. Maybe you loved Benny and you got high together and everything was fine. Maybe all the bad stuff inside me is from Farouk, I don't know. But Farouk knows and I do not want him using me to rape you again."

If Lenny keeps talking this way, David isn't going to make it through this session because he's going to be sick again. And today's been hell on his stomach already.

"I'm sorry," Lenny says, backing down. "I know you don't wanna think about this stuff. I don't wanna think about it either. But I hurt Kerry because-- I'm not stable. I suppressed my trauma just like you. So we have to figure out what happened, we have to talk about it, and we have to learn how to stop it from happening again so we can both be better. Okay?"

It's not okay. David desperately wants to make this entire conversation stop. He wants Lenny to just be Lenny and he never wants to think about Benny or Farouk ever again. He just wants all of this to stop. _Please._

"I'm sorry," Amy says, stroking his back, trying to soothe him. "I just want all of us to be happy, too. But denial won't make this go away. We all have to face the truth. But we're facing it together. Nothing we learn will make us love you any less. I love you, Davey. I always will."

David already spent a good while letting Amy hold him and soothe him just so he was calm enough to have this session. He feels selfish asking for more, but-- He can't get through this without her. 

"It's okay," Amy soothes, and urges him to stop holding himself and hold her instead. "It helps me, too, remember? If there's anything that helps me feel like myself, it's loving you."

David lets out a harsh breath and lets Amy hold him. He knows they need to talk about this, he knows. He knows there's worse things waiting for him. But facing them is agony.

When David feels able to, he lets go of Amy and wipes his eyes, faces the group. Syd and Divad sitting together in one loveseat, and Oliver and Ptonomy in the other. Dvd and Kerry upstairs, apart from them but-- Surely listening.

"We're gonna take this slow," Ptonomy tells him. "One step at a time. The plan is to start with what you and Lenny remember about those years. And then Amy and Divad can tell us what they know."

"Why?" David asks. "Divad was there, he can tell us what happened."

"This is about more than just the objective truth," Ptonomy says. "And even though Divad understands now that what happened wasn't your fault, during the years you and Benny were together, Divad was was a prisoner in your system's body. That's going to affect how he remembers what happened. Dvd will be the same. Remember, they had to experience whatever you experienced. Which means your relationship with Benny was also, to some degree, their relationship with Benny."

David looks over at Divad with dawning horror.

"Yeah," Divad admits. "And Ptonomy's right. I know now that-- You did the best you could. You didn't know we were there. But back then--" He gives David a regretful look. "I'm glad now that-- You couldn't hear the things I said to you."

"Divad, I'm-- I'm so sorry," David says, even though it hardly feels like any amount of apologizing could even begin-- 

"You didn't know we were there," Divad says again, firmly. "Farouk did this to us, okay? He trapped me and Dvd and made you forget and kept us apart. Remember what Ptonomy said? It hurts now because you're coming back to us. And we agreed that-- If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop. I want the pain to stop. So-- Before we start this, I want you to know that-- I forgive you."

"I don't even know what you're forgiving me for," David protests.

"It doesn't matter," Divad says. "We're a system and-- I want our system to be a safe place for all of us." He glances at Amy. "We've all made a lot of mistakes but we're trying to be better. And-- We can't get better without forgiveness. So I forgive you. And I'll keep telling you I forgive you until you actually believe it."

David doesn't know if that's-- The nicest thing Divad's ever said or the most exasperating. Maybe both. It doesn't seem fair to-- Force him to-- Accept forgiveness. But-- Refusing forgiveness is just a way he hurts himself. And he doesn't want to do that anymore.

"Okay," David says, accepting that Divad's going to be doing that, if nothing else. "Um, thank you. I think, um, it'll probably help." 

"Good," Divad says, and leans back, satisfied.

"Divad, that was lovely," Amy says, approving.

"What did he say?" Syd asks.

"David, why don't you tell her?" Amy prompts.

David huffs, but does it anyway. "Divad said that-- He forgives me. He wants our system to be a safe place for all of us. And, um, we all made a lot of mistakes but we're trying to be better, and we can't get better without forgiveness. And, uh, he's going to keep telling me he forgives me until I actually believe it." He feels himself blushing at the last part and looks away.

"Amy's right, that was lovely," Syd says to Divad. "Thank you, Divad."

"Tell Syd she's welcome," Divad says, and looks even more pleased with himself now.

"Divad says you're welcome," David relays, and realizes-- Divad and Syd are suddenly awfully friendly. When did that happen? 

"I kinda like her," Divad points out. "I told her she's not allowed to hurt you, but-- I wouldn't mind if she stuck around."

David feels-- Weirdly jealous. "But I haven't-- I still have to--" He glances at Syd. He still has to work through what happened, how she hurt him. Divad can't-- He can't forgive Syd before David does!

"Well, I haven't entirely forgiven her," Divad admits. "Just like I haven't entirely forgiven Amy. But you're the one told us to make up already. Dvd's gonna take forever to forgive anyone, someone's gotta pick up the slack. And hey, we're thinking about going to college together."

"College?!" David says, looking between them. "How would that even-- No. No, we are not talking about this now. This is-- We can't even leave the building, much less go to college, that's-- Do you have any idea how much therapy we need before we could go to college?"

"Oh, so much therapy," Divad admits, cheerfully. "It's on my wish list anyway. And Syd's. Maybe you should be thinking bigger than a tropical vacation."

David sputters. "I am thinking bigger," he protests. "I put down-- I want good memories and-- To be whole. How is that not ridiculously huge?"

"Yeah," Divad admits. "But that's just what you'll get from doing all this therapy. Don't you want-- Non-therapy things?"

The idea of trying to think beyond therapy seems-- Stunningly audacious to David. His entire life has been nothing but trying to get better and failing catastrophically. The possibility that he might actually succeed is miraculous enough. And Farouk is still watching them, waiting to make their life a living hell again and-- Lenny said it, he has a giant list of mental illnesses and psychological problems.

"Yeah, we're a mess," Divad admits. "But we agreed. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop. So you need to start thinking about what you want to do when the pain stops."

David just doesn't know what to do with that. "Five minutes ago you tried to erase me," he protests.

"Five minutes ago you almost cut us with our busted lamp," Divad says, sobering. "Did I mention we're not stable yet? When we're up we make progress, and then we crash, and then we use that progress to pull ourselves back up again. I've been paying attention, I know how this works. So when we're up, we have to make as much progress as we can. And even if we all crash at the same time, we have all these people who are actually helping us. So it's gonna be okay."

David stares at Divad. That sounded-- Amazingly like something his rational mind would have said. 

"Well, I am your rational mind," Divad insists. "But I was being tortured and-- That made me push us in the wrong direction. Now I know which way we need to go, because-- You showed me. So I'm pushing us your way."

"You're full of compliments all of a sudden," David jokes, self-conscious.

"I had some breakthroughs," Divad says. "Look, I know the whole-- Fragments and fusions thing-- It's a lot. You need time to process it. But you and Syd and Dvd acknowledged your feelings even though you aren't ready to be together. So now it's my turn. I want our new system to be good for all of us. I want us to make each other happy. I'm not angry with you anymore and-- That lets me feel how much I love you and how much-- I miss what we had before I decided I knew what was best for you. I'm sorry. I was wrong."

David’s just completely at a loss. He's glad, but-- It's so unexpected. "Um. I want-- Our system to be good for all of us, too. And maybe, um, when it's Dvd's turn-- We could spend some time together? We haven't really-- Talked, much."

"I'd like that," Divad says, pleased. "I'm sorry I've been-- Hard to reach. I've been trying to keep myself from thinking about a lot of things. It's hard to get better when you're refusing to be honest. Opening up hurt, and seeing the truth hurt you-- That was the worst part. But you need the truth about us. And you need the truth about Benny."

Damn it. David was really enjoying not thinking about Benny. 

"Your rational mind is telling you to keep doing the work," Divad says, wryly. "But it's like Amy said, we're facing it together, so-- Let's keep doing the work together. Okay?"

David takes a deep breath, lets it out. Divad knows everything that happened, or at least his version of it. And Divad says he forgives him. So even if-- What happened was awful-- At least he has that. And he's not facing this alone. "Okay," he says, and turns to Ptonomy. “Let’s rip this band-aid off already.”

“Okay,” Ptonomy says, pleased. “David, since you’re feeling motivated, start us off. Tell us how you remember meeting Benny.”

David closes his eyes and concentrates. He thinks back, back, before Clockworks, before Philly, back to— College? No, college was over. He got his letter of expulsion and— 

“Someone told me about a party off-campus. I wasn’t going to go, but— My roommate said the worst had already happened.” What was his name? David can’t remember his name. “He said— I should stop being miserable and have some fun on my last night. He went to the party with me, but— I lost track of him once we were there. I was upset, I drank way too much. I just—“ David pauses as the old feelings come back to him, faded but— somehow still raw. The anger, the guilt, the sheer sense of— Failure. The frustration of nothing helping, the medication not helping. He couldn’t understand why it didn’t help.

He knows now. It didn’t help because it never helped. And nothing helped because nothing was allowed to help. But he didn’t know any of that then.

“I don’t really remember what happened next,” David admits. “I don’t know if— Maybe there was something— I just felt really weird, really—“ He shakes his head. “And then I was outside in the alley, sick, and— Lenny was there. She, uh, helped me. Gave me some water. And then— It’s hazy again, but— I remember— Not wanting to go back to my dorm, to the college— So Lenny— Let me sleep at her place.”

“And the next morning?” Ptonomy asks.

“I was so hungover,” David admits. “My head was throbbing. I remember— Black coffee and— Breakfast cereal. Taking the bus back and— Amy was there, she helped me pack. We loaded up her car and she took me home.”

“Okay,” Ptonomy says. “Lenny, tell us what you remember. How did you meet David as Benny?”

David opens his eyes to look at Lenny.

"I don't, like, actually remember being Benny," Lenny points out. "I was me, but-- A different me. I was a dealer so I went to a lot of parties. Everybody was always happy to see me because they knew I'd make them feel good. That was my thing, right? So at one party, there's this guy, he's obviously having a bad time. So I give him something to cheer him up. But it turns out he's on some kinda meds, he has a bad reaction. I get him outside, give him some water. I tell him I'll get him home, but he doesn't wanna go home or to the hospital. I felt kinda bad since I made his night worse, so I let him crash at my place and made sure he didn't choke on his own vomit. In the morning he was okay, he had to go, and I thought I'd never see him again."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, considering. "The two versions you remember are pretty close. And David being drugged and sick, Benny taking care of him, that matched your dynamic in Clockworks. Amy, what do you remember from when you came to get David from college?"

"Well, Dad was there with me," Amy says, already concerned. "Farouk must have made you forget that. And-- You didn't have a roommate that year."

David startles. "What do you mean, I didn't have a roommate? I definitely remember--" He rubs his face, upset. This is King all over again and they've barely started.

"You had a medical exemption. We did ask the resident assistant to keep an eye on you after your seizure," Amy offers. "Maybe that's who you're remembering?"

"Probably not," David sighs. Of course he saw people who weren't there, that was-- Part of his schizophrenia. He heard things, saw things. He didn't know what was real. Now that he has-- At least a slightly firmer grasp on reality, all of that is-- A lot harder to face.

"Even though some of that was your powers, Farouk gave you those hallucinations," Ptonomy reminds him. "The hallucination of a roommate gave him another way to manipulate you. I think-- We need terms for the layers of reality we're discussing. There's the things that were real to you and to people outside of you. Your dorm existed. Amy visited you and we have records of your time there. Let's call that-- External reality."

"External reality," David echoes. "Okay."

"And the next layer, that's things you remember experiencing but that can't be externally confirmed. They're internal to yourself, your body, your system. Divad and Dvd can share their perspective on those things. We'll call that internal reality. But then after that-- We have the problem of genuine and altered memories. So for example, your genuine external reality was that Amy and your dad came to take you come from college. But your altered external reality was that only Amy was there."

"Okay," David says. "That makes sense."

"Good," Ptonomy says. "So we'll use those four terms: external and internal, genuine and altered. But I don't want you to feel any judgement about the ways in which those experiences come into conflict. Farouk was the one who decided the reality of your experiences. He changed your memories and he was able to use hallucinations to create the reality he wanted you to experience. To put it simply, as long as he was in your head, he was in control. You do not bear any responsibility for the decisions you made during that time. That responsibility belongs to Farouk."

Amy tightens her grip around David's waist and on his hand. David grips back.

"That's-- Really horrific," David admits. It used to be that all he saw was his shame, but now--

"It is horrific," Ptonomy agrees, soberly. "This is memory work, David. We're confronting your past from the perspective of the present. As we do this, be in your body, in the moment, but then find some distance. Try to see it from the outside. Take in the new perspectives that are being shared with you, let them help you change how you feel." He turns to Lenny. "And the same applies to you. Lenny, you are not Benny. The memories you share with David from before Clockworks are not your memories. You are not responsible for Benny's genuine or altered realities. Recognize that this is not your story."

"Aye aye, cap'n," Lenny says, with a mocking salute. But David can see that she's trying.

"Amy," Ptonomy says. "What happened after you and your dad arrived?"

"David wasn't there," Amy says. "We were worried, but-- Before we could go look for him, he showed up. He was in bad shape, he'd obviously been out all night. He smelled like alcohol and he was in a terrible mood, he just wanted to get everything packed and go home. We knew he was devastated about being expelled, so that's what we did. We didn't push him to tell us what happened."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So David, the external, genuine reality of what happened is that you received your expulsion letter and went somewhere, likely to a party, to drown your sorrows. But something went wrong and you didn't get back until the morning. Amy and your dad helped you pack up your things and took you back to your childhood home." He turns to Divad. "Divad, now tell us what you remember. Was this the night David met Benny?"

"It was," Divad says, unhappily. "Look, by this point-- Me and Dvd had tried everything to get control back. We still kept trying, but-- Being expelled-- It felt like-- The monster had won. The life we had, the life I built trying to save us, all that was over. We were all upset, but-- That day was really hard for me." He gives a bitter laugh. "Not that it mattered when I couldn’t do anything about it." He sighs. "Okay, so-- We all experienced our body’s hallucinations. So we all saw the roommate, but me and Dvd knew he wasn't real."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "So you and Dvd were mentally present in your system's body during all of this? What about your bedroom?"

"We could go there, but-- Who knew what we'd come back to?" Divad says. "Hiding felt like giving up. And Dvd could sometimes-- The monster allowed him to take control if our life was in danger. Just enough to save us, but--" 

"Farouk couldn't get rid of your bedroom," Ptonomy says. "But your need to protect David made it impossible for you to stay away." He pauses. "Let's get back to that night. Farouk’s hallucination brought David to the party. Is that what happened?"

"Yeah, we went out," Divad says. "But that party wasn't just-- kegs and beer pong and loud music. We were on heavy psych meds, we shouldn't have even been drinking."

"And then Benny gave David drugs?" Ptonomy asks.

"No," Divad says, and looks at Lenny with barely contained anger. "He slipped something in our drink. That was his way of 'making us feel good.' We saw, we warned David but he couldn't hear us. We drank whatever was in there and it hit us hard."

David looks at Lenny, and she looks back at him. "That's not what I remember," she says, upset.

"Because this is Benny's story, not Lenny's," Ptonomy says, firmly. "Divad, please continue."

"The place was packed," Divad says. "And it was loud and dark. But Dvd saw Benny watching us. When David put our drink down, Benny dosed it. But he didn't know about our meds. David got really agitated, he was freaking out, and then we got sick. We made a big mess right in the middle of the party, really killed the vibe. People got pissed, we were totally out of it. Benny told everyone he'd take care of it. He took us outside, got us some water. He tried to get us to leave, but David--" Divad sighs and looks to David. "You did what you always do when you're upset. But we weren't there to comfort you. Benny was."

David shifts, rubs at his face, takes some calming breaths. "So you're telling me-- Benny tried to rape me. But I got sick from whatever he gave me so-- Instead I-- Turned to him for comfort."

"He took us to his place," Divad says. "He actually-- Tried to sober us up. Black coffee, a shower, then he tried to take us home. I think-- He felt guilty. But you were really clingy, you needed touch, comfort, so-- He gave us that."

"What are you saying?" David asks, feeling panicky. "I made him have sex with me? He drugged me!"

"Oh, he definitely wanted to have sex with us," Divad says. "But he tried to make us leave and you wouldn't. You needed Dvd and didn't have him."

"Dvd made me have sex with him, too!" David protests.

"Dvd had sex with you because that was what you needed," Divad counters.

"Do you realize how insane that sounds?" David asks, incredulous. And Divad is supposed to be his rational mind? 

"Okay, let's take a moment," Ptonomy says, intervening. "We need to stay focused on what happened with Benny. Divad, no matter how much David needed comfort, he was clearly in no condition to consent. If Benny truly cared about David's well-being, he would have taken David to a hospital and told them what he put in David's drink. But he didn't do that, did he?"

"No," Divad admits. 

"I know you're trying to move past your anger now," Ptonomy says. "And you're making big strides with that. But you haven't yet worked through the anger you felt back then. I know those feelings are raw. But you need to find some distance so you don't hurt yourself and your relationship with David."

"You're right," Divad says, backing down. "David, I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault."

"Thank you," David says, exasperated. "Of course it wasn't my fault! Farouk made me go there and then Benny drugged me! At what point did I actually have a choice about any of that?" He leans back, trying to calm himself. Fuck. Fuck, of course it's awful. Why would anything in his past not be awful? Why did he think it would help to have Divad forgive him when it wasn't his fault in the first place!

"Divad, tell us what happened after that," Ptonomy says.

"We slept," Divad says. "In the morning, we felt awful. Benny tried to make us eat something, but David didn't want anything. All he could think about was the letter and packing up and going home. Benny gave us his number and he kissed us goodbye. David-- He thought he didn't deserve to be loved, so he threw out the number."

"So I did think Benny loved me?" David asks, flatly.

"You didn't know why we got sick," Divad says. "You thought Benny rescued us, took care of us and made us feel good. But that whole part of our life was over." He turns back to Ptonomy. "Amy and Dad brought us home, but home didn't help. Amy and Dad found Doctor Poole. He was supposed to be this great therapist for schizophrenics."

"Amy, tell us about that," Ptonomy says.

"All that's true," Amy says. "David's condition wasn't improving. And our house was so far out of the way. It needed to be for Mom's sake, but-- She was gone. When David was doing well in college, I thought-- It was my chance to have a life for myself. Move to the city, make new friends, go on dates, get a good job. I was just starting to build all of that when David was expelled. And when we found Doctor Poole, it seemed like-- The best thing to do was move David close to the doctor who could help him."

"But you didn't have him live with you," Ptonomy says.

"No," Amy admits. "I wanted my own life. We found an apartment between my place and Doctor Poole's practice. That way David could have support but also some independence."

"So that brought David back to the city," Ptonomy says. "David, when do you remember meeting Benny again?"

"Um, I ran into him at a convenience store," David admits. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Benny instead of Lenny. Benny is _not_ Lenny. "I didn't remember him at first, that night was really hazy, but-- He remembered me."

"I bet he did," Lenny mutters.

"He asked if I wanted to get a drink," David recalls. "He said-- He knew some great parties. I said-- I wasn't really a party guy, so, uh, he said-- We could do something just the two of us. Wow, all of this is-- Really different coming from Benny."

"Lenny, what do you remember?" Ptonomy asks.

"I sure don't remember hitting on David," Lenny insists. "Yeah, I ran into him again. He looked kinda lonely, the kid was obviously in need. I thought a party might cheer him up. And if he didn't want to party, then we could just get high and leave all the bullshit behind us. Hey, I remember giving him that pill and him taking it because he wanted it."

"Because Lenny wouldn't drug someone to have sex with them," Ptonomy says. "And you didn't. Benny did. So tell us what you remember _Benny_ doing."

"Oh, right," Lenny says, getting it. "Benny ran into David and thought a party would cheer him up. But David wasn't up for that, so Benny offered to share his stash with him. Benny knew that, uh, David couldn't take the hard stuff, so he offered something light. Take the edge off, you know?"

"And David agreed?"

"Yeah. He and Benny swapped numbers, made a date," Lenny says. "Not that kind of date. Well, I guess it actually was that kind of-- Whatever. Benny went over to his place and we-- They got high. Had some pizza, watched TV. It was chill."

"David, does that match what you remember?"

"Yeah," David agrees, though now he knows the truth was definitely something different.

"Amy, were you aware of any of this?"

"No," Amy says.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "Divad, go ahead."

"Farouk didn't change much about the convenience store," Divad says. "Except that we obviously knew Benny was hitting on us. And David wanted Benny to make us feel good again. So yeah, the next day, Benny came over. We got high and ate pizza and watched TV. And we fucked. That’s when David fell in love with Benny."

"And I didn't figure out what he did to me?" David asks.

"Benny had other things on his mind when we were together," Divad says. "You loved how much he wanted us. The fact that he wanted to get us high and do things to us-- You liked it."

"I'm sure there were times when David didn't want the same things that Benny wanted," Ptonomy points out. "What happened then?"

"I told you, Farouk messed him up," Divad says. "He made David trusting. It's the same thing that happened with Syd."

"So if David was unhappy or hurt by Benny's actions, he blamed himself," Ptonomy says. "He felt his suffering was a punishment he deserved. Even when he felt angry or resentful, he accepted that Benny knew what was best for him."

"Yeah," Divad sighs.

"So what you're actually saying is that Farouk didn't change David at all," Ptonomy says.

"What?" David and Divad both ask, confused.

"The behavior you describe David having with Syd and Benny is exactly the same behavior he displayed with you and Dvd," Ptonomy tells Divad. "His shame, his neediness and passive acceptance. All of these are traits David has displayed since you became a system."

"But Farouk changed him," Divad insists.

"Farouk made David forget you and Dvd," Ptonomy says. "But all that did was make David search for someone outside your system to re-enact with. David accepted that Benny knew what was best for him because he grew up accepting that you and Dvd knew what was best for him."

"You're saying Benny and Syd were our fault?" Divad asks, upset.

"Your whole system was under Farouk's control from the start," Ptonomy points out. "So no, it's not your fault. But if you want to break that pattern, you need to recognize it in yourself. And you're starting to do that, both you and Dvd. You're recognizing that all of you need personal boundaries, that loving each other means respecting each other as equals."

"Farouk didn't change me in college," David says, grappling with that. "He changed my memories, but-- That was all?"

"We can't underestimate the power of memory," Ptonomy says. "And yet as Divad and Dvd admitted right from the start, David has always been David."

"I've always been me," David says, shocked. "I'm the ship."

"You have continuity," Ptonomy says. "Even without the memories you lost, you have continuity."

"But my rational mind, and all the fragments," David protests. "If all those parts of myself just walked away, how can I be me?"

Ptonomy considers the question. "We don't know how Farouk restored you. But I think-- It would help to remember that you're a system. No matter how many pieces that system is in, no matter how those pieces are arranged, collectively you are still one system. Whatever happened, Farouk couldn’t change that."

David grapples with that and fails. He barely understands what it means to be an identity, much less a system. Trying to understand all of that on top of piecing together his real past-- It's too much.

"Okay," Ptonomy allows. "We can set that aside for now. Let's get back to Benny."

"Great," David says, weakly.

"David, tell me about how your relationship with Benny worked," Ptonomy says. "What do you remember doing together?"

"A lot of drugs," David admits, trying to visualize Benny in place of Lenny again. "After college, I was-- Struggling. I saw Doctor Poole a lot, and-- I think he helped as much as he could. He was a lot nicer than the doctors I had before." Or at least that's what he remembers. "Sometimes I'd be okay for a while, and it really seemed like I was finally getting better again, that I could be-- What I remembered being in college." Except he was never what he remembered being. Those are Divad's memories. "But it never lasted. And when that happened-- Benny was always there for me."

"So you remember Benny keeping you company and helping you feel better with drugs," Ptonomy says. "And you don't remember Benny hurting you, manipulating you?"

"Well, I mean," David starts, uncertain. "The drugs wouldn't pay for themselves. And Amy got mad if I used too much of the money in my account. She didn't like Benny very much. She said he was a bad influence, but--" God, it feels awful to say this now, knowing what he knows. "Our friendship was the only thing I had for myself. He was the only one who-- Really helped me survive."

"I'm sure it felt that way," Ptonomy says, understanding. "No one knew you didn't have schizophrenia. They didn't know that your symptoms weren't symptoms, that they were Farouk intentionally giving you hallucinations and delusions, confusing your thoughts. They didn't know that the medication only made things worse for you."

"No," David agrees.

"And when you were with Benny, when you accepted the drugs he gave you, you felt better," Ptonomy says.

"Yeah," David sighs, thinking back. "I mean, it didn't make everything stop, but-- It was better." The vapor was the best, but it wasn't until the end that Benny found that for him. Benny was like having another doctor, his own personal pharmacist, always looking for what would make David float higher.

After six years of being drugged completely out of his mind in Clockworks, the drugs have lost their appeal. He doesn't want to lose himself anymore, he doesn't want to give up everything he is to pills or vapor or anything else. 

"So if you couldn't use the money in your bank account, how did you pay for the drugs?" Ptonomy asks.

That brings David back to earth. "Um. We'd pawn stuff, or trade it. First the stuff Amy bought me, and then, um, things I took from Amy, from other people." He looks at her. "I'm really sorry."

"I know," Amy says, giving him a reassuring rub. "It's okay."

"I did a lot of work on all that with Doctor Kissinger," David admits. "I knew it was wrong, stealing from people. But if we didn't have money we couldn't get the drugs, and without the drugs--" He swallows.

"Farouk gave you a way out of your pain," Ptonomy says. "But it required you to hurt yourself and the people around you. I know you struggled with that."

David nods. "But, uh, the guilt-- Just made me need to escape myself more. It stopped being-- Just for the bad times. I was high all the time, that was the only way I could-- Stand being alive." And one day even that wasn't enough.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, gently. "Let's go back. Lenny, what do you remember about Benny's relationship with David?"

"It was definitely about the drugs," Lenny admits. "I mean, Benny wanted David to feel better. He liked David a lot, he cared about the kid. But he used David. He took David's shit, but he didn't use all that just for David's drugs. He paid himself first. He was just a low-level dealer and he was dipping into his own supply. He needed David to cover that, so he made sure to keep David happy."

"Really?" David asks, surprised.

"I'd apologize, but it wasn't actually me," Lenny says, apologetic anyway. "And I think the real story is probably worse."

David puts his face in his hands and whimpers. Even in his altered external reality, he had no idea what was going on.

"So you remember Benny's relationship with David as being more exploitative," Ptonomy says to Lenny. "Benny kept David high, and David being high made him vulnerable."

"Yeah," Lenny admits. "We-- Benny and David did drugs together a lot, and— When David was out of it, sometimes Benny went shopping. If David noticed something was missing, Benny told him he gave it to him to pay the costs. Benny made sure that David was too high to care, and David just got used to it." She's not pleased. "Benny was a dick."

"Yeah, I guess," David admits. But he still feels-- He's trying to separate Benny from Lenny, Lenny from Farouk, but-- Learning all of this is only making him more emotionally confused.

"Amy, what do you remember of David and Benny's relationship?" Ptonomy asks.

"When David first told me about Benny, he said he was a friend from college," Amy says. "I was happy that he was reconnecting with someone. I thought it would be good for him, he was very lonely. I didn't know how they really met, and when I found out about the drugs-- I tried everything I could to convince David to stay away from Benny. I even tried paying Benny off. But nothing worked."

"That must have been very frustrating," Ptonomy says.

"It drove me crazy," Amy admits. "I thought-- If David just focused on his therapy, if he could keep a steady job-- I needed him to be okay, for himself and-- For me." She looks at David, as apologetic as Lenny. "I'd taken care of you all my life. Watching you get worse-- Doctor Poole was supposed to help you, but he wasn't enough. I started looking for-- Somewhere you could stay."

"Even before I--" David starts. He always thought-- It was the suicide attempt that forced him into Clockworks.

"I didn't know how else to help you," Amy says, pained. "You wouldn’t stay away from Benny. And all those drugs-- I always worried that one day you'd take too much."

"I'm sorry," David says, even though he already apologized to Amy so many times in Clockworks. When he wasn't begging her to take him home. Kissinger was always going over all the things David did wrong, and being trapped in that place-- It felt like a punishment for how badly he'd ruined his life, ruined Amy's life. A punishment he deserved but was still desperate to escape. But isn't that his whole life? He was always being punished and desperate to escape it, even though he knew he deserved whatever he got.

"You never deserved any of this," Divad tells him. "I meant what I said before. I'm gonna keep forgiving you until you accept it. The only reason this happened was because we had a monster in our head. It's like Benny. Benny could have taken us to a hospital and let us get real help but he didn't. He kept us for himself. That's what Farouk's always done, he kept us for himself."

"That's exactly what he did," Ptonomy agrees. "And now that he's out of you, we're helping you take yourself back from him. You want that, right?"

"Right," David says, holding on to that. He wants to take himself back. He wants to be his own David.

"It's important to face what you did," Ptonomy says. "But what happened was not your choice. Acknowledge what happened, learn from it so you can avoid repeating those mistakes, and then let it go. Forgive yourself and allow yourself to move on. How about we give that a try now?"

"Now?" David asks, surprised.

"You forgave yourself for changing Syd's memories," Ptonomy says. "Try forgiving yourself for stealing from Amy."

David looks at Amy, uncertain. 

"It's okay," Amy assures him. "I love you. I forgive you for everything that happened, just like you forgave me. I want you to forgive yourself."

David rubs his face, feeling a jumble of emotions. Forgiving himself for Syd, that was-- It just happened, he didn't even try to do it. He doesn't even know-- It was just-- Suddenly he felt-- 

He steadies himself with a breath. 

He forgave himself for Syd because-- He acknowledged what happened. He was scared and confused and heartbroken and he was desperate to undo what Farouk had done to them. So he tried to undo it. But he knows now that-- He should have asked for help. He should have left Syd as she was and told someone what happened. And now that he's learned that, holding on to the guilt and pain of that moment-- He knows it won't help him. He has to let it go.

And Amy-- 

"I stole from you because-- The drugs were the only thing I had that helped me," David admits. "And maybe-- I was angry with you for not understanding that. But the drugs didn't help me the way I thought they did. I wish we both knew the truth, that-- We could have found the help I really needed. But we know now and I have that help and--" He can do this. "I forgive myself for stealing from you." 

He tenses, still feeling like forgiving himself is wrong, but-- Amy pulls him into her arms.

"I love you," she says, and-- It's okay. He forgave himself and it's okay. He holds her back and feels-- A release. Just a small one, it's still-- Difficult to forgive himself for any of that. But it feels like-- It's actually okay to start letting go. He knows a better way to survive than just-- Trying to make himself go away. He doesn't want to go away.

"That was wonderful," Amy tells him, a smile in her voice. "I'm so proud of you, David."

David pulls back and wipes at his eyes. "Thanks," he says, shyly. He can't believe he did that. And it felt-- Good? It feels good.

"That was excellent, David," Ptonomy praises. "That was a big step. Let's take a break, and then we'll rip off the rest of that band-aid."


	105. Day 11: You can love someone and still do terrible things to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of rape

Divad is not ready to talk about their relationship with Benny. He doesn’t see how he’ll ever be ready to talk about their relationship with Benny. And yet that's exactly what he has to do, for so many logical, rational reasons. 

David might be upset about losing his rational mind to Divad, but knowing the right thing to do doesn't make doing it any easier.

"How are you holding up?" Ptonomy asks David, when their break is over.

"Okay," David says, but tiredly. 'I just want to lie down and not think about anything for a month.'

"Once we're done with Benny, you can rest," Ptonomy says. "You're doing great, David. Let's get you through the last stretch, okay?"

David nods and gives Amy's hand a grateful squeeze. 'I'm not facing any of this alone,' he thinks to himself.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, looking around at them. "We talked about how Benny and David first met, and then how they met again once David was back in the city. We heard what Lenny and David and Amy remembered about Benny and David's relationship. Divad, are you ready to tell us what you remember?"

No, Divad thinks, wishing he could be in their body with David right now, holding Amy's hand together, like they did when they were young. "Yes," he says, but falters anyway. He wishes Dvd was able to share this burden with him, like they always have. But it's Divad's turn to hold their system together.

"We'll take this one step at a time," Ptonomy assures him. "You told us that David fell in love with Benny. How did Benny feel about David?"

Ptonomy hasn't been asking the small questions today. Divad swallows, laces his fingers together. He doesn't look at David. It's easier to tell this to Ptonomy, somehow. "David and Lenny remember the drugs. And the drugs mattered a lot, but--" He stops, starts again. "It's pretty obvious by now that you can love someone and still do terrible things to them."

"So Benny wasn't just using me?" David asks, warily curious.

"Us," Divad corrects. "And no. I'm not defending what he did, we shouldn't have been with him at all, but-- He wasn’t just our drug buddy. He loved us, and— We loved him."

"Your system shares everything," Ptonomy says, understanding. "So you also shared David's feelings for Benny?"

"Yeah," Divad admits. "I mean, being together in our body-- We were used to David being in charge. It's how we always worked. We just-- Weren't in charge of David anymore. If we didn't want to lock ourselves in our bedroom forever, we had to accept what was happening to us."

"That must have been incredibly difficult for you and Dvd," Ptonomy says. "You knew what Benny did to your system and you didn't want to be with him. But you were."

It's such a massive understatement that Divad wants to laugh or cry or both. But he doesn't do anything.

David is horrified, of course. "Divad," he starts.

"You didn't know," Divad tells him. He absolutely does not want to hear David spiralling about this. "You didn't know what Benny did and you didn't know about us. Before you start apologizing, this is why I forgive you. I forgive you, okay? I know everything that happened and I forgive you."

'You shouldn't,' David thinks, stubbornly.

"Tough," Divad tells him. "I forgive you anyway."

"But you didn't forgive David back then," Ptonomy point out.

"No," Divad admits. "Look, I was furious and Dvd was a mess. But we still felt the feelings in our body, we heard David's thoughts in our head. No boundaries, remember? We were just parts of him, we didn't have our own lives."

"So how did you deal with that anger?" Ptonomy asks. 

"I blamed David," Divad admits. That anger has only just started to go away. "I knew it was the monster's fault, but-- We couldn't stop the monster any more than we could stop Benny."

"Your system had no control," Ptonomy says, understanding. "But until Farouk took it away, you and Dvd had control over David."

"Yeah," Divad says, looking at David apologetically. "I said a lot of awful things to you. You couldn't hear them but I'm still sorry for saying them."

David gives a tired nod, obviously without the energy to go through his usual cycle of frustration about not remembering. 

"Okay," says Ptonomy. "So as I understand it, Benny was effectively the first person your system was in a serious relationship with. Were you attracted to anyone before that?"

"Sure," Divad says. "But it wasn't safe to want things and it sure as hell wasn't safe to love anyone. We just-- Tried not to think about any of that. As long as David had Dvd, our system could take care of itself." It didn't matter that Divad was lonely, that he was left out. It didn't matter that there were people who liked them, who wanted them to like them back. None of it mattered.

“Benny and your system were together for a long time,” Ptonomy says. “Was it Benny or David who decided to keep the full nature of your relationship a secret?”

“David,” Divad says. “He was afraid Amy would be upset, she didn't even like Benny being our friend. And I guess, uh, if David was re-enacting what he had with us--"

"Secrecy was instinctive," Ptonomy agrees. "David couldn't risk telling anyone about you and Dvd, so he felt that telling people about his relationship with Benny was also dangerous. I expect the disapproval people had towards Benny only made that feeling stronger."

"Yeah," Divad says. "But we loved Benny and we needed the drugs Benny gave us." He hated that, hated how the drugs took away what little control they had. If David had only been able to hear him, if Divad hadn't lost control-- 

But their system never had control. If Farouk didn't want them to put that stuff in their body, there were plenty of ways he could have scared David away from Benny or the drugs. He could even have just made David forget about both of them the way he forgot so much. Farouk allowed them to fall in love with someone who would hurt them, to take refuge in drugs, and then he used those things to drive David into despair. And then he used that despair to put them into Clockworks, and used that place to torture them without worrying about another suicide attempt.

"God, it's all-- Really horrific," Divad realizes, just as David did earlier. Without shame or anger, seeing what happened to them clearly-- 

"It is horrific," Ptonomy agrees, as he did with David. "But Farouk is out of you and we're going to stop him."

Divad really hopes Ptonomy is right. Now that they're finally free and starting to heal-- The thought of Farouk getting control of them again is absolutely unbearable. Divad doesn't want to die, but he'd rather their system kill itself than live that way again. When David hung them it was awful, but-- 

"Let's stay focused on how to keep your system safe and happy," Ptonomy cautions. "Isn't that the more logical option?"

"Sorry," Divad says, glad David can't hear his thoughts right now. "You're right." If they killed themselves, Farouk would just snatch their soul like he did to Lenny, and then they'd be trapped in Farouk's body, which is even an even more horrifying thought. They have to get strong so they can fight back and win.

"So tell us more about your system's relationship with Benny," Ptonomy says. "Was the rest of it the same as Lenny and David remember?"

"The drugs were the same," Divad says, bracing himself again. "And the stealing. But everything else--" He looks at David, who's watching him in wary expectation, and Divad really doesn't want to keep going. But he has to. "Benny loved us, but his idea of love was--" What was the word Ptonomy used? "Exploitative."

David just gives a tired sigh. "He raped us?"

"Our relationship started when he tried to roofie us," Divad points out. "Part of why he loved us was because-- We gave him what he wanted. He literally drugged us and had sex with us. Even though we loved him, we wanted the drugs, we wanted him-- He wanted us most when we were too high to want anything."

"And I was just-- Okay with this?" David asks, strained.

"Farouk left you enough," Divad says. "You remember not caring when Benny stole from us. You remember believing that he knew what was best for us. It was the same with the sex. We needed someone to hurt us and Benny wanted someone to hurt."

"None of that is love," David says, angrily. 

"We didn't know any better," Divad admits. "Ptonomy's right, what me and Dvd did to you, what the monster did to all of us-- And I know you're not ready to think about Syd, but the same thing happened with her. The same thing probably would have happened if we'd escaped with Lenny, she would've dragged us right back to the drugs."

"What about Philly?" David asks, with an edge of desperation. "I don't remember Philly hurting me. Us."

"We fought with Philly all the time," Divad says. "If anything we were mad at her for trying to stop us from self-destructing. She wanted us to get better, and better meant no Benny and no drugs." He looks at David's unhappy face and hates having made him unhappy. "We thought we didn't deserve to be happy because we were sick," he reminds David. "But we still wanted to be normal no matter how impossible it felt. So we tried to fake it, we tried to lie our way to a normal life. And every time it didn't work, that made us crash harder because it was proof that we would never be happy and we'd always be sick."

'That was exactly how I felt,' David thinks. 'Farouk left me all of that. But if I was with Benny--' "How did I even end up with Philly, if I was with Benny?" He thinks-- Was it Amy who set them up? He can't--

"It was Benny," Divad says, to David's surprise. "Look, he was a selfish, sadistic asshole, but he loved us. You and Benny both thought we were schizophrenic. Our 'symptoms' kept getting worse. Amy met Ben and things were serious, and we knew what Ben thought of us. We told Benny we were afraid of what would happen when Ben took Amy away, so-- He tried to find us another Amy."

"Oh," Amy says, softly. She looks ashamed. "Divad, I'm so sorry."

"You didn't know either," Divad tells her, tiredly. "No one knew anything, that's why we have to talk about this now." He sighs. "Philly was-- Some friend of a friend of a client, I don't know. But Benny set us up, said she would be good for us. He told us to try and make things work. And we did try, we tried to love her the way Philly and Benny and everyone wanted us to love her. But it was just like when you tried to force yourself to love me and Dvd. It wasn't real. And every time things went wrong, we ran right back to Benny."

'I wish all of that didn't make sense,' David thinks, miserably.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "Thank you, Divad, I think that's enough for now. Unless there's anything else we need to know about those years?"

Divad feels like he's said more than enough. "No," he says, even though-- He feels so many things. Shame, regret, anger, longing, grief. Benny's dead now. Divad never wanted to see him again, but now that he's gone-- Benny tried to help them, in his fucked-up way. He was there for them when no one else was. If he wasn't an addict, maybe Benny would have been a half-decent human being. But the drugs were his monster and no one saved him from them. Even though there was nothing they could have done, Divad regrets that.

'I forgot how much-- Amy getting married--' David thinks, and looks at Amy, apologetic. "It was so many things. I felt so awful all the time. But-- Breaking up with Philly again-- Losing both her and you--" He swallows. "And then Doctor Poole--" He sniffs, wipes at their eyes. 

"David," Amy says, holding him. "I'm so sorry I put you in that place."

"It's okay," David says, but he looks anything but okay. "Um. I guess-- Being with Benny didn't--" He takes a shaky breath. “He wasn’t enough?”

"We were-- You were in terrible shape that day," Divad says, his throat tight. "You thought about Benny, but-- You thought you were a burden on him, on Amy and Philly, on everyone. You thought-- If all you were ever going to be was sick, if you couldn't even stop yourself from hurting people-- Then the world was better off without you. You just wanted the pain to stop. It was-- Exactly what happened when we woke up in the cell, when you realized what you'd done, when-- You learned about us." Thinking about those days still breaks their heart. Having his system back made David want to die _so much_. Divad had to start numbing himself with his powers, it was the only way he could— Stand to be alive.

Just like David. Divad always set himself apart, convinced that he knew best, that all their failures were David’s fault. But they’re the same: in how they hurt themselves, in how they survive. There are things that are different, big things, but— They’ve always shared so much. 

When he looks up, expecting to see David upset from discussing those awful days, instead he finds— David calm, with their hand over their heart. And then David looks up at Divad with a strange fascination.

“What?” Divad asks, self-conscious.

“You really have always been with me,” David says, amazed. “I don’t remember a lot of that. Which is nothing new, but— I remember more of those years with Benny than anything before that. And you know. The way I felt, things I didn’t even tell Doctor Poole or Kissinger— You know them better than I do and— You see them clearer. Because you’re my rational mind.”

“I wasn’t then,” Divad says, even though he’d already fused with plenty of other fragments. 

“Whatever pieces of me you were then,” David says, amazed at what he’s saying. “You were really there.”

“Always,” Divad promises, feeling a sudden spark of hope. “We’re a system, _your_ system.”

“That should be ‘our system,’ right?” David asks. “We’re both parts of our system. Together. And even if— That means we ended up sharing— Actual fragments of ourselves—“ He shakes his head, still disbelieving. “It’s okay because— It’s like Ptonomy said, about the pieces.”

“No matter how many pieces your system is in,” Ptonomy says. “No matter how those pieces are arranged, collectively you are still one system.”

“I felt so alone in Clockworks,” David says. “Those first days, I was so numb and everyone was gone— But you were there. You and Dvd were always there.”

“We were,” Divad agrees, glad it’s the truth. They never stopped hoping they would get him back, that they would break free of the monster’s control and save their system, and everything would finally be okay. 

“Thank you,” David says, earnestly. "For staying with me." 'I wasn't alone. Even then-- I really wasn't doing any of that alone.'

It feels amazing to hear David think that, to hear him believe it. For a bad memory to transform into a good one. For one of the worst moments in their life to somehow become-- Something precious. 

'I've always had Divad and Dvd,' David thinks, and the thought feels true and heartfelt. 

"You have," Amy says, warmly. She gives him another squeeze, rewarding him. 

"I've asked Kerry to bring Dvd down for his session," Ptonomy tells them. "David, are you ready to step out?"

David closes his eyes, focuses on himself to do his check-in. "I'm ready." He looks at Divad, focuses on him. Divad can't remember David ever focusing on him so intently before, wanting with be with him so much. Divad doesn't want him to stop.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "How about you two go up to the loft? Spend some time together."

'I'd like that,' David thinks, warmly. He's still looking at Divad as he thinks it. Divad's never felt so utterly _seen_. 

David leans back, stills, and steps out of their body. He sighs with relief at leaving it behind, then looks at Divad again. Divad stands up, feeling drawn, and doesn't resist when David pulls him into a hug. Divad cautiously holds him back. It's so strange, all of this is so strange. 

Kerry and Dvd descend, and Divad hopes-- Hearing all of that, seeing Divad and David healing their system-- But Dvd refuses to look at them. He walks past them and looks like it's all he can do not to break into tears again.

"Dvd," David says, turning to him, worried. But Dvd refuses to acknowledge him.

"C'mon," Divad says, taking David's hand. "They've got this."

David gives another worried look back, but he gives Divad's hand a grateful squeeze, just like he did with Amy. Divad doesn't want to waste this moment. He leads David up to the loft, and thinks how-- They're going to just keep each other company and talk and-- Get to know each other as they are now. Not as two remnants of a broken system, but-- As two people leaving behind their anger and shame to build a new, shared life together. And as much as he wants to be in the world and give back to it and be known-- He wants this even more.


	106. Day 11: We all need healthy touch to survive.

Ptonomy closes his eyes and listens to David and Divad up in the loft, the two of them genuinely engaging with each other for the first time in-- A decade? Probably longer. Before David forgot his system, he was constantly being tortured or recovering from torture, Divad was denying his full reality, and Farouk had twisted their close bond into another kind of torture for both of them. None of that would make it easy for them to just sit together and relax.

What the two of them have endured, and Dvd, too-- In some ways, Ptonomy understands why Farouk can't let them go. It's fascinating how David's system has survived all of this, the sheer flexibility that's allowed such extreme mental contortions. Farouk pulled David apart, over and over, while David's system tried to pull itself back together, and the result is a tangled knot of identity and experience and memory, far beyond even the worst that DID systems have been known to endure. 

As Divad himself admitted, other systems at least have the safety of their own heads. The Davids never had that. Farouk seems to have used their ability to fragment and fuse as a sculpting tool: carving pieces from one identity and merging them into the others. If Ptonomy had to guess how Farouk managed to make David stronger-- The obvious answer is that he simply reversed the process, tortured Divad and Dvd so that the only safe place for their fleeing fragments to go was back to David. 

There's no way to confirm that short of asking Farouk directly. It's obvious that Divad and Dvd have both forgotten a lot, and as Farouk boldly told Syd, they don't know what they've forgotten. The Davids have survived largely through brute force acceptance of whatever horror they were enduring. And Ptonomy is using that same acceptance now to push them to heal.

He wonders if it would be possible to fragment off some of Dvd and Divad's mental shielding and have those fragments go into David. That would help tremendously in giving their system healthy boundaries, but to actually implement it would be-- Torture. A monstrous kind of surgery, no anesthetic possible. Exactly what Farouk did countless times over. The accelerated therapy they're putting the Davids through is already pushing ethical boundaries. Division 3 might not care, not if it helps save the world, and yet--

To know your enemy, you must become your enemy. That's another lesson from Sun Tzu that Ptonomy's held close to his heart. It's why he's never been afraid to make the hard choices. But dying helped him see that there's more to victory than winning. Hard choices helped turn Summerland into a mirror of Division 3, and now he feels the pull to turn himself into a mirror of Farouk. How much of Ptonomy's own choices have been a brute force acceptance of the world he found himself in? It's the kind of question that would keep him up at night if he was actually able to sleep.

He really misses sleep.

As it is, the biggest question is how much he'll be able to do before he's too sick to help anymore. It isn't only the Davids who are being pushed to their limit. Ptonomy's never worked so hard in his life, studying and researching every moment he isn't in some kind of session, pulling on all the mainframe's resources and the Admiral's statistical models to revise their plan again and again, because despite everything they've learned they're still playing catch-up, and with the amnesia all the Davids suffer from, they might never know the full truth.

It's exhausting work, even without a body that can tire, and Ptonomy can feel the urge to just-- Make the hard choices, the choices he would have made before he died, back when he still confused inhumanity for dispassion. 

That's not what Melanie would have wanted, the old Melanie. For all her mistakes, she had faith in the power of healing. She believed in the dream of a better world, not made with brutality but compassion. Her compassion saved all of them at one point or another. If they're going to save the world, build a new future, a new Summerland like Cary wants and all of them need-- It needs a foundation of compassion or it won't be anything but another Division 3, another Farouk. And the world has too much Farouk in it already. 

Ptonomy opens his eyes and engages with his environment. Dvd was in no condition for any kind of talk therapy even before he stepped into his system's exhausted body, so they wrapped him in a blanket and sandwiched him between Amy and Kerry on the sofa. He's stubbornly resistant to any kind of verbal comfort, but he's as unable to refuse physical comfort as David and Divad. That's another way the Davids survived: simple human touch.

Ptonomy's in need of some touch himself. He took a break earlier to be with his family so he could use touch to restore his mental strength, and with the way he's flagging now, he doesn't see how he's going to help Dvd without another treatment of his own. 

'Amy,' he says over the mainframe connection, getting her attention. 'I think-- I'm going to have to leave again.'

'Getting tired?' Amy asks. 'It's been a long day for all of us.'

They both look at Lenny. In the aftermath of the Benny session-- It's clear all of that hit her hard. It hit Syd hard, too, even though she's doing her best to hide it and is distracting herself with her sketching. 

'Maybe we should do something as a group,' Amy offers. 'We're all supposed to be modelling, remember? You shouldn't leave when you need help, you should reach out.'

'I know,' Ptonomy sighs. 'But I'm the therapist.'

'You can help them and be their friend,' Amy chides gently. 'Isn't that what you told Lenny?'

'You're really enjoying throwing my advice back at me,' Ptonomy says, wryly.

Amy laughs over the mainframe, though her android's face doesn't show it. 'Someone has to keep you on your toes.'

'Believe me, I'm practically _en pointe_ ,' Ptonomy sighs. But he knows she's right. They can't start rebuilding the rocket lamp with Dvd in the state he's in, so if they want to get to that today, they need to find another way to help Dvd and everyone else. 'So what do you suggest?'

'It needs to be something we can all do together,' Amy says, thinking aloud. 'Something therapeutic, relaxing, bonding.' She glances at Syd, at Lenny. 'How about a group massage?'

'That's going to be tricky,' Ptonomy points out. They have two people who are disembodied mental projections, one who can only be touched by androids, and one who doesn't want to be touched at all.

But Amy seems confident. 'Let me handle this session. It's your turn to be a patient, too.'

'Then you're the therapist,' Ptonomy says. 'So how do we handle this?'

"Lenny," Amy says, turning to her. "Can you go get David and Divad? We're going to do something together."

Lenny does not seem enthused. "Shouldn't we, like, let them get snuggly?"

"This will help them bond, too," Amy says. "It'll be good for all of us."

Lenny gives Amy a very skeptical look. "Fine," she sighs, and hauls herself up. 

"We'll use the beds," Amy says. "Oliver, can you and Ptonomy get them ready?"

"Of course," Oliver says, and heads over to the sleeping area. Ptonomy stands to help him. After all that sitting and talking, it does feel good to move around. 

"Dvd, sweetie," Amy says, gently. "I know you're feeling awful right now. But we're all going to do something together so we can feel better, okay?"

Dvd gives her a mournful look. "People stuff isn't for me."

"Well, it doesn't matter what you think you are, you're getting it anyway," Amy says, with sisterly sternness. "C'mon."

Dvd pulls into the blanket with childish stubbornness. "Leave me alone," he whines. 'It's bad enough I have to be in our stupid body. I hate everything.'

"This will make your system's body feel better," Amy tells him. "It will help you feel-- Less alone in your body."

Dvd gives her a suspicious but curious look. "How?"

Amy doesn't answer him, she just stands up and walks over to the beds. Dvd scowls at her and then follows her. All of the Davids are suckers for curiosity. If there's something they want to know, sometimes that's enough to get them moving again.

Kerry follows after Dvd, also curious. She's holding up well without Cary, but she's been staying close to them ever since he went inside her. She reminds Ptonomy of a niece of his, back when she was a toddler. She was very attached to her parents, always looking back to them to make sure they were watching her. And if they weren't, she would find the closest safe person to attach herself to. Sometimes Ptonomy's leg was what she would grab on to, even though he was her grumpy uncle. Though he was never grumpy with her. 

It's been years since he saw her. She must be all grown up now. Now that he's actually speaking to his family again-- He wonders if she even remembers him. She was still so young when he left everyone behind, when he accepted the danger in his life as something-- Inevitable. Necessary. Worth more to him than the people he loved, even though he claimed love was why he had to leave them. There was some truth to it, being a mutant was and is dangerous, but all of that was just a story he told himself. He doesn't want to be part of that story anymore.

Syd closes her notebook and follows Kerry over, and then Lenny descends, presumably with Divad and David trailing behind her. 

"Is everybody here?" Amy asks.

"We're here," Divad says, from the space between Lenny and Amy.

"What's going on?" David asks. He's beside Divad. 

"We've all done a lot of hard work today, so we're going to do something that will help everyone feel better," Amy tells him. "We're all going to give each other massages."

"Uh, no thanks," Lenny says, of course. 

'It'll be fine,' Amy tells Lenny, letting Ptonomy hear her, too. 'Model for the Davids, remember? And for Syd.'

'God, I hate you,' Lenny grumbles. "Great. I can't wait," she says, flatly, and crosses her arms.

"Massages?" Dvd asks, dubious.

"We're all going to pair up," Amy tells them. "Divad and David, obviously you two will be together. You can take your bed at the end."

"Okay," David says, and Ptonomy hears him moving towards their bed. 

"Ptonomy and Kerry, you take the next bed," Amy says. "Dvd, you're with Oliver in the next. And Lenny and Syd, you're together."

"Excuse me?" Syd says, displeased.

"Yeah, no thanks," Lenny says. "You're not paired up, you take her."

"I'll be helping everyone," Amy tells her. "Now go on." She shoos them over. 'Ptonomy, a little modelling help?'

'Got it,' Ptonomy says. He goes to his assigned bed and lies down on his front. Kerry comes and stands next to him, uncertain but eager.

"You go first," Divad tells David. "You're exhausted."

"You had to dig up all that Benny stuff," David protests.

"So did you. Look, I want to take care of you," Divad tells him, a little shyly. "I have a lot to make up for, so just-- Let me start making up for it, okay?"

"It wasn't your fault either," David tells him, quietly. "And we both have a lot to make up for."

"Yeah," Divad sighs. "But you're still going first."

"Okay, okay," David relents with a huff. 

Dvd's watching them, and once David lies down, he reluctantly does the same, obviously not wanting to be left out even when he's refusing to talk to David and Divad.

"It'll be okay," Amy tells Dvd, with a soothing stroke on his shoulder. "But I have to take the blanket so Oliver can help your system's body. Okay?"

Dvd pouts again, but he lets her take it. Amy folds it and sets it aside. Three down, one to go.

Syd and Lenny are mirrors of each other, arms crossed defensively, jaws set and eyes narrowed. Their mutual hostility would almost be impressive if it wasn't so childish and the stakes weren't so high.

"Syd," Amy says, and takes Syd's hand. She takes Lenny's hand. Both of them resist as Amy brings them together, but Amy turns Syd's hand palm down so Lenny won't be touched back. They both tense as their hands touch.

"See?" Amy says to Syd. "Lenny can touch you just like I can. No needles."

"I don't get needles," Lenny says, defensive.

"No, but you both have haphephobia," Amy says, in the same sisterly tone she uses on the Davids. "Syd, you've done a lot of work on your haphephobia. Lenny could really use your help with hers." When Syd remains reluctant, Amy puts on a concerned face. "You know what Lenny's been through. She never had anyone to help her. She didn't have someone like Melanie."

That puts a crack in Syd's armor. 'Clockworks,' she thinks. "I guess-- If I can help--" she offers.

"Don't do me any favors," Lenny mutters. She glances past Amy and sees everyone watching them. 'Fuck. I hate this, why are you doing this to me?' she asks Amy through the mainframe.

'Because you need it,' Amy tells her. 'If you want to help stop Farouk so we can get our real bodies, you need to work on your fear of touch.'

'Fine, but I don't need it from Syd,' Lenny mutters. 'I can just baby-monkey you, problem solved.'

'No,' Amy says, gently but firmly. 'You need to acclimate yourself to touch, just like Syd did with Matilda. Unless you'd rather work with the cat?'

"Are you guys having a conversation?" Syd asks, looking between them.

"Yes, I'm sorry," Amy says. "That was rude. I was just telling Lenny how Matilda helped you acclimate yourself to touch."

"I bet you just coasted right through," Lenny mutters, even though all of them have watched the footage of Syd's therapy.

"No, it was awful," Syd admits. "I hated it. But I--" She glances at Dvd, then back to Lenny. 'I did it for David,' she thinks. "I needed to do it," she says aloud. "I didn't want-- To be controlled by my fear.”

"I'm not afraid," Lenny says, defensive.

"Then what's the problem?" Syd challenges. "You're the one who molested Kerry, and you think I should be happy about you touching me?"

"Uh, I already had a taste of that, thanks," Lenny smirks, giving Syd a full-body leer.

'Disgusting,' Syd thinks, recoiling. She pulls her hand free of Amy's grip, and then Amy lets go of Lenny.

"Hey, I was just along for the ride," Lenny defends. "Farouk's the one that raped both of us, you think I wanted your straight ass? I mean, maybe for a hot second, but--"

'This is not happening,' David thinks, audibly disturbed.

"Could you guys maybe _not_?" Divad says, annoyed. 

"Sorry," Lenny says, backing down. 

"Syd," Amy says, firmly. "I don't think now is the time to talk about those things. And you've made your own mistakes with consent."

'David,' Syd thinks, immediately regretful. 

"We’ve all made mistakes," Amy continues. "But we're all trying to be better. Lenny deserves the same chance we all do." She turns to Lenny. "And Lenny, you _are_ afraid. And that's okay. We're all afraid, and we're trusting each other so we can get through this together. You need to try to trust Syd so the two of you can help each other." She turns back to Syd. "And that goes for you, too."

Lenny looks annoyed but resigned. "She is such a mom," she tells Syd.

Syd gives a surprised laugh, then covers her mouth. "Sorry."

"Yes, well," Amy says, sheepish. "I did have to take care of three traumatized brothers." She reasserts herself. "After that you two are a breeze."

"I bet no one's ever called you easy before," Lenny jokes to Syd.

"No," Syd admits, mildly amused. Then she closes her eyes. 'I can't survive alone. I can accept help. I can give and receive love. Trust my friends.' She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again. "I'm sorry. I want us to be able to help each other. Can we try again?"

Lenny looks skeptical. She glances at Amy again, and Amy gives her an encouraging look. "Fine," Lenny sighs, begrudgingly.

"Thank you, Lenny, Syd," Amy says, pleased. "Syd, would you mind going first? I'm sure Lenny will be on her best behavior."

Syd seems to enjoy being the one on the high road. "Of course," she says, and goes to lie down on the bed next to Dvd and Oliver's. She gives Dvd a small smile, but Dvd turns away from her. It's clear he's not ready to talk to Syd yet.

Baby steps, Ptonomy thinks. They're getting there.

He turns on his side and looks up at Kerry. “You okay?”

“Um, I guess,” Kerry says, but she looks uncomfortable. Ptonomy realizes that Amy made a smart choice in putting a buffer between Lenny and Kerry.

“It’s okay if you’re upset,” Ptonomy reminds her. “David, are you okay?”

“No,” David sighs, his voice muffled as though he has his face against his pillow. ‘Why did they have to bring all that up?’

“Is David okay?” Syd asks, concerned.

“He and Kerry both need a moment,” Amy tells her. “You two wait here.” She walks over to Kerry. “Hey,” she starts, and before she can say anything else, Kerry hugs her tightly.

“You’re okay,” Amy soothes, holding her. She strokes Kerry’s hair. “It’s all right.”

“Divad,” David says, softly, and it’s not clear what the two of them are doing, but Dvd is watching with obvious longing. Maybe Divad is mirroring Amy, maybe they’re just holding hands. What matters is that Divad is offering David comfort, and David is accepting it. 

There’s a term in biology and psychology: beneficial stress, or eustress. Too much is obviously toxic, but some stress can be good, even necessary. Part of therapy is learning how to turn distress into eustress with healthy coping mechanisms. Kerry and David accepting comfort, Divad giving it— Those are more baby steps, even small strides, all in the right direction. Today’s been hard work, but it’s paying off.

Amy lets Kerry end the hug when she’s ready. The brief comfort seems to have been enough, reviving her determination. 

“David?” Amy calls, walking over to their bed. “Divad?”

“We’re okay,” David says, sounding better. 

“Yeah,” Divad agrees. ‘But can we please not push it?’ The thought is clearly intended for the relay, for everyone but David and Dvd and Syd. 

Amy gives an acknowledging nod and then moves on. "Who here has experience with massages?" she asks everyone. 

Ptonomy raises his hand, and then Kerry raises hers. "I do massages when I'm training," she offers. "Physical therapy stuff."

"I've done some kinda massage, but not the therapy kind," Lenny smirks. Ptonomy's not surprised in the least, but then the massages he did were with his girlfriends, too.

"Oliver, Melanie sometimes mentioned missing your massage," Ptonomy says. It was always late at night, when she was tired and her neck and shoulders were stiff. When she allowed herself to feel how much she missed him. "She said you were very good."

"Then I'm sure it'll come back to me," Oliver says, pleased. 

"You've got the expert, Dvd," Amy tells Dvd.

"I'm thrilled," Dvd mutters. 

"I know any touch at all can be difficult for some of us, but we all need healthy touch to survive," Amy tells them. "We're going to start with simple back and shoulder massages. That's where most of us carry our stress. It's also a fairly neutral area with low sensory receptors. Our clothes will also help us feel protected."

"Looks like Amy's the real expert," Lenny says, reluctantly impressed.

"I've been learning a lot," Amy admits. "So let's get started. Massagers, stand next to your partner's upper body. Let's start with a simple touch, so you and your partner can get used to the feeling."

Kerry puts a confident hand on Ptonomy's back, and Oliver does the same to Dvd. Ptonomy can't see what Divad is doing, but hears no complaints.

Lenny hesitates, her hand hovering over Syd's back, and then she puts it down. Syd stiffens with a sharp breath, and Lenny looks to Amy, uncertain, but Amy motions for her to stay put. 

'No needles,' Syd thinks, in relief and reassurance. 'It's like Amy and Ptonomy. I need to let Lenny help me. It's okay.' Her tension eases.

'This is weird,' Dvd thinks. But he isn't pulling away from Oliver's hand.

"Everyone okay?" Amy asks them. She waits for their assent, then continues. "Great. Massagers, just stroke your partner's upper back, along their spine and shoulders. Slow and easy."

Everyone complies. 

'This is kinda nice,' David thinks. He sounds like he's relaxing.

Ptonomy's android body doesn't have muscles that need massaging, but his artificial skin carries the sensation well enough. And he's certainly carrying plenty of mental tension that needs working out.

Amy checks on Syd. "If something upsets you, just say stop, okay?" she tells her. "This is meant to help you feel better, not worse."

"I'm okay," Syd says. "It's just-- New." 'I don't know if I'll ever get used to this.'

"Lenny's going to take things very slow," Amy promises. "And remember, she'll need your help to be able to accept your touch. Be honest with each other. You two understand each other better than you think."

'She understands how much she hates me,' Syd thinks.

Out of Syd's view, Lenny rolls her eyes. 'I don't hate her, I just hate how she thinks she's better than everyone.'

'You think you're better than everyone, too,' Amy points out.

'Yeah, but I actually am,' Lenny retorts. When Amy just looks at her, Lenny rolls her eyes again. 'Fine, I get it. Go hover over someone else.'

Amy does, moving on to Dvd. "Dvd, how are you feeling?"

"Okay," Dvd says, non-committal. 

"It's just like I said to Syd," Amy tells him. "If anything upsets you, say stop."

"Stop," Dvd says.

Oliver takes his hand away.

"That was very good," Amy praises. "Now tell me what's wrong."

"You said I'd feel better," Dvd says, stubbornly. "I don't."

"Well, we're just getting started," Amy says, reasonably.

"David feels better," Dvd says, like a child demanding fairness. Which is basically what he is, having had so little socialization outside of his system.

Amy gives him a thoughtful look. "David isn't the one in your system's body. You are. So it's easier for him to feel better quickly. The massage will make your body feel better so it will be easier for you to feel better."

"What if it doesn't?" Dvd presses.

"Then we'll find something else that will help," Amy promises. "But I'm sure it will help if you give it the chance. People all over the world use massage to feel better."

"I'm not a person," Dvd says, stubbornly.

"But you do have a body," Amy says, patiently. "And if you take care of your body, if you help it feel better, it will help you feel better. You know that, it's how you and Divad have helped David."

Dvd considers this. 'I guess that makes sense.'

"Is it okay for Oliver to start again?" Amy asks.

"Fine," Dvd sighs, still reluctant. But when Oliver strokes his back, he seems more at ease.

"Ptonomy, how about you?" Amy asks. 

"Good so far," Ptonomy says. "But I think our android bodies are going to need something different than the standard technique."

"We'll get to that for you and Lenny," Amy assures him. 'Thanks, that was helpful,' she tells him over the mainframe. 

'You're doing great,' Ptonomy tells her. She really has learned a lot, and not just about massage.

Amy moves to the last bed. "David, Divad? How's it going?"

"It's nice," David says. "Soothing."

Ptonomy isn't surprised he's taken to this so well already. He's the most tactile of all of them, and he's very used to touch, even if it's new that it's from Divad. The Benny session did a lot to break down the wall between the two of them, which was a surprising but welcome outcome.

"I like it, too," Divad says. 'It's really nice to just-- Touch him, make him feel good. It's like-- The exact opposite of all that screwed-up advice.' 

"You're both doing really well," Amy praises. She turns back to the group. "Okay, so now we're going to start the actual massage. Kerry, as Ptonomy pointed out, you can't really give his android body a traditional massage. Syd, you'll have the same problem with Lenny, so pick up what you can."

"Okay," Syd says.

"Ptonomy, can I demonstrate on you?" Amy asks.

"Go ahead," Ptonomy says. 

Kerry steps back and Amy takes her place, putting her hands on Ptonomy's shoulders. "Lenny, Oliver, Divad -- Put your hands on your partner's shoulders, like this. A light pressure to start, and then knead. Slow, even strokes. Feel for the muscles and avoid the bones."

Amy demonstrates as everyone copies her. 

"Ow," Syd says, wincing. "Not so hard."

"You don't have muscles, you have steel cables," Lenny complains. "No wonder you're so uptight, have you ever relaxed?"

"No," Syd says, perversely proud.

"See, now that sounds like a challenge," Lenny says, smirking.

"Hm, this does feel familiar," Oliver says, thoughtful. He adjusts his grip and Dvd chokes out a moan.

"Dvd?" Amy calls, concerned. "Should Oliver stop?"

"No," Dvd says, hurriedly. Then he hides his face, embarrassed.

"Harder?" David sighs. 'Oh, that's the spot-- No, right there--'

Divad chuckles, fondly amused. 'I gotta get Oliver to teach me whatever he's doing.'

"Very good," Amy tells everyone. "Divad, watch Oliver and Lenny and follow their lead. They both know what they're doing." She steps away from Ptonomy.

"What should I do?" Kerry asks.

Amy considers that. "You've done physical therapy massages that increase circulation?"

Kerry nods.

"Let's give that a try," Amy says. "Shallow kneading, circular rubbing. We don't have muscles so what's important is to stimulate our artificial nerves. And if it's okay with Ptonomy, you can do his arms and legs, too."

"I'm good with that," Ptonomy assures them. And then Kerry gets to work, and Ptonomy finds it hard to focus on anything else. It's a little strange, not feeling the deep muscle release a normal massage would give, but Kerry's hands are strong and she clearly enjoys the challenge. Ptonomy lets himself be the patient and actually relaxes, relieved that he can trust Amy to handle the others.

This was definitely what he needed. He directs Kerry as necessary, but mostly he lets himself be loosened up, and a gentle euphoria suffuses him. He idly notices the thoughts drifting through the relay, mostly David and Dvd thinking slurred thoughts about how good they feel, with the occasional interruption of a sore spot. Syd in the other hand—

"Will you relax already?" Lenny complains. "I'm not gonna hurt you, geez."

"I know," Syd says. 'I'm trying, I just--'

"Just another minute, and then we'll switch," Amy warns them.

'Noooo,' Dvd whines, to Ptonomy's amusement. 'I'm just starting to feel better.'

"You can always ask your partner to massage you again," Amy tells them. "Or anyone else. But it's time to return the favor."

'I don't think I can move,' David thinks, his thoughts pleasantly slurred. 

"Take a few minutes to recover," Amy suggests. "Sit up when you're ready."

Ptonomy sits up and gives his body a great stretch. "I needed that," he sighs. "Kerry, that was really good, thank you."

Kerry perks up at the praise. "It was fun! I kinda like all this physical therapy stuff, it's like-- Punching the pain out of people instead of into them."

"I guess it is," Ptonomy says, amused.

When everyone's switched positions, Amy looks them over like a general inspecting her troops. "We're going to do the same as before, and it should be simple now that everyone's had some practice. David, Ptonomy, Dvd-- If you need any help, the best person to ask is your partner. Let them direct you like you directed them. Syd, I'll come help you with Lenny."

"Um, okay," Dvd says, uncertain as he looks down at Oliver. 

"You'll be fine," Oliver promises. "Just copy what I did to you."

"I don't know what you did," Dvd says, but haltingly tries anyway. 'This is weird.'

'This is great,' David thinks, sounding calm and happy. 'I feel so much better. And Divad will feel better, and Dvd-- And we can all just relax.'

'Ever the optimist,' Divad thinks, in reaction to David's thoughts. But he sounds hopeful himself.

Ptonomy starts kneading at Kerry's back.

"Harder," she tells him. "My muscles are really strong."

"I've got an android body," Ptonomy replies. "I think I can handle it."

"How are you two doing?" Amy asks Lenny and Syd.

"Good," Syd says. 'I'm glad that's over.'

Lenny's eyes narrow at Syd's thought, but she doesn't reply. 

"Great," Amy says. "I know everyone else is rushing ahead, but let's go back to the basics. Remember, she hasn't done much work on her haphephobia yet. So we need to take this very slow."

"Right," Syd says, sobering. 

"Lenny and I tried different kinds of touch earlier today," Amy says. "Based on that, we'll need to stay very clear of any intimate areas. She tolerated leg-to-leg touch, but she's only really been able to accept touch where she's in control."

"That's why she's been hugging you?" Syd asks.

"Exactly," Amy says. "I know your challenges aren't quite the same as hers, but I really think you're the best person to help her."

"You know it's not just about exposure therapy, right?" Syd asks.

"We know," Amy says. "We saw your sessions with Melanie."

Syd blanches, but nods.

"Right now what's important is helping Lenny stay herself," Amy reminds her. "You had a year to get as far as you have. We have to focus on short-term solutions."

"I'm right here, y'know," Lenny says, annoyed.

"We know," Amy says, fondly. "How about we start with the same thing as everyone else? Just a simple touch on your back?"

"Whatever," Lenny says, but when Syd touches her she almost jumps off the bed. "Fuck!"

"It's okay," Amy soothes. She offers her arm and Lenny grabs onto it.

"I'm not afraid," Lenny grinds out.

"It's okay if you are," Amy assures her. "Syd?"

"I was afraid, too," Syd tells Lenny. "It wasn't just the needles. It was--" She folds her arms, not quite wrapping them around herself. "I had to learn to separate-- The trauma I experienced from-- The sensations in the present. It's like David's untangling thing. You have to untangle what you're feeling from what you're remembering."

'That sounds like-- Do I have haphephobia too?' David wonders. 'Maybe sharing my body is like-- A kind of touch.'

Ptonomy is tempted to encourage David to follow that train of thought, but he knows it would be too much after the day they've had. Right now they need to calm the Davids down, bring them back together. For now he flags it and sends it to David's file.

'Internal haphephobia,' Divad thinks, considering. 'Maybe Syd can help us like she's helping Lenny.'

Ptonomy flags that too, and smiles to himself as he works a knot out of Kerry's muscles. The Admiral's models have helped a lot, but the real world is always full of surprises. Strangely, that's the one thing that gives him the most hope for their success. That's one way he's different from Farouk. He doesn't need to control everything to get what he wants. The more everyone is able to help themselves and each other, the better their odds.

"I don't have time for all that," Lenny complains.

"No," Syd accepts. "But unless you want your fear to control you for the rest of your life, however long that is-- You need to start. At least you don't have to deal with needles under your skin, right?"

Lenny gives a long-suffering sigh and sits up. "Fine. But this massage stuff isn't working for me."

"Okay. How about we try another round of what we did before?" Amy suggests. "You're feeling better now than you were this morning. You and Syd can experiment with different kinds of touch. "

"I had to lock myself in my room with Matilda," Syd admits. "It was the only way I could force myself to start. And it was still--" She grimaces. "It's not going to be easy. But the more you practice, the easier it gets."

"You sound like Ptonomy," Lenny mutters.

"Actually, I sound like Melanie," Syd says. "She taught both of us." 'I wish she was here now. Will we ever get her back?'

"What, did she have haphephobia too?" Lenny mocks.

"No," Syd says, amused. "So are we going to give it a try?"

"Like I have a choice," Lenny mutters. 

Syd sits down beside her. "You're okay with hugging Amy, right? And you didn't have any trouble giving me my massage. So it's not all touch that triggers you."

"No," Lenny admits. "It's fine if I'm the one in charge."

"So put yourself in charge of being touched," Syd suggests. She holds out her hand, palm down. "Touch a part of your body to my hand."

Lenny gives Syd's hand a wary look, but raises her arm. She braces herself, then touches her forearm to Syd's palm. She pulls back like she's burned, but Syd keeps her hand steady, patient. It must have taken a lot of patience for her to do all that work on her own haphephobia. Syd's not the type who gives up easy.

Lenny tries again, again. It's clear it's uncomfortable for her, but each time she holds her arm against Syd's palm a little longer.

"I hate this," Lenny mutters.

"You're doing great," Syd encourages. "You know, um, if you want, sometime-- You can give Amy a break and hug me."

Lenny gives her a doubtful look.

"It would be good for me, too," Syd admits. "I did a lot of work with Matilda, but-- Honestly, now that there's people I can comfortably touch-- Not having the needles in the way made me realize I still have a lot of work to do. The massage-- It was hard for me to relax," she admits.

"No shit," Lenny says.

Syd ignores that, continuing. "And I, uh-- Freaked out this morning, when Amy touched me."

Lenny sends a request to the mainframe, and Ptonomy watches the surveillance video clip it returns: Amy caressing Syd's arm, and Syd freezing up with panic.

"So what made you freak out?" Lenny asks.

Syd glances at Dvd. "I don't think now's a good time to talk about that. But, um-- Maybe we should. Talk about it."

"You wanna share therapy?" Lenny asks, eyebrows high.

"I think we both need it," Syd admits. "And if we're both going to be in David's life, then we need to be friends. Maybe helping each other-- Will help us do that."

Lenny gives Syd a very considering look. "Maybe you're not such a white after all. I could see you in yellow."

'Is that a compliment?' Syd wonders. 'I guess it is to her.' "Thanks," she says. 

Baby steps and small strides, Ptonomy thinks.


	107. Day 11: Headmates. I like that.

When Dvd reluctantly stepped into their body, he braced himself for the worst: more painful therapy sessions, more lectures, more dredging up of everything Dvd has absolutely no desire to think about ever again. It was all going to be miserable and Dvd resigned himself to enduring it like he's endured every miserable moment of their life. It didn't matter because he wasn’t going to exist anymore soon anyway.

But there's no sign of any of the things he's braced himself for. Instead it's just been-- People being inexplicably nice to him, to a fragment that shouldn't even exist. It's stupid that they're doing it, they're obviously wasting their time. But being held by Kerry and Amy, massaged by Oliver-- They made his system's-- No, _David's_ body feel better, and the least Dvd can do is let David's body be cared for so it won't make him feel bad when he gets it back. 

When the massages are done, there's a quick detour to the cafeteria to pick up drinks and snacks, and then Dvd is brought up to the garden with everyone for some fresh air and afternoon sunshine. 

Lenny wanted to eat Twizzlers, so Dvd watches Lenny and Ptonomy and Amy all share Twizzlers together. It's still weird watching them chew in sync, but there's something familiar about it, and Dvd realizes it's an outside version of how their system used to work, how they ate together and shared everything together-- And his longing is like a stab in the gut. 

They're never going to share again. One of the only good things in their whole life was torture. Dvd's love for David was torture, too, and that was the only other good thing. Or he thought it was, but that was just another one of the monster's tricks. Of course it was. 

Divad was right. David shouldn't have loved anyone, not even them. But Divad's ignoring his own incessant warnings now, strolling around the roof with David, hand-in-hand. It's like how they used to stroll around Clockworks with Syd. Well, with Syd they needed to hold a scarf, but--

Whatever. Dvd takes a bite of his own Twizzlers and tries matching Lenny and Amy and Ptonomy. It kind of makes him feel better, but then it makes him feel worse. He gets up and walks away, figuring if David and Divad can be alone, so can he. Maybe David's right and as long as he's not sitting down, he doesn't have to be with anyone.

He's wrong. He notices Kerry and and Syd whispering to each other, and then they both join him at the railing.

"Hey," Kerry says, and holds out her Twizzlers. "You want mine? They're too chewy." She scrunching up her nose. She wiggles the candy at him, and Dvd takes it just to make her stop. Kerry smiles, pleased with herself.

Dvd hears David thinking happy thoughts about Divad, and it makes Dvd want to throw the Twizzlers at Divad's head. Too bad they'd go right through.

"Dvd?" Syd says. "Is something wrong?"

Everything is wrong. "No," he says, stubbornly. "Leave me alone."

"Sorry, you know the rules," Kerry says, but she's obviously not sorry at all. "Hey, I was thinking about that autobiography."

"Did you two finish it?" Syd asks.

"No, we had to go slow so I could write down my questions," Kerry says. "The system in the book is really different from mine or the Davids. And a lot of it's really sad. But we got to the part where the system members finally started talking to each other. They were scared of each other at first, but then they realized they could be friends."

"That sounds nice," Syd says. "I'd like to read it when you're done."

"Sure," Kerry says. "I was thinking about how the Davids don't want to be brothers anymore. But members is kind of--" she trails off. “I dunno. But I'm not gonna call Cary my member, that sounds weird. So if we’re a system, we need a better word."

"You could be twins?" Syd offers. "That would fit the Davids, too."

"But we’re not twins," Kerry says. "Well, probably. But if we're not-- I want a word that tells people right away that we're a system. I don't want to hide what we are. If that's what we are. We shouldn't have to hide that we're mutants and we shouldn't have to hide that we're a system."

Kerry gives Dvd a look that clearly means she expects his approval. It's the same look she gives Cary all the time. 

"I guess," Dvd says, unable to deny her. 

"So do you have any ideas?" Syd asks.

"There was something in the book," Kerry says. "Headmates. I like that one."

"Headmates," Syd tries, considering it. "That is good. It's neutral but not impersonal."

"Cary's my headmate," Kerry tries, and beams. "I bet he'll like that." Her smiles fades. "I hope he wakes up soon." She puts her hand over her belly.

"Still fast asleep?" Syd asks.

"Yeah, he's been really quiet," Kerry says. "Oliver keeps checking on him for me, and he says I shouldn't worry. I used to nap inside of Cary all the time, so I guess this was what it was like for him." She rubs her belly in a soothing circle. "He must have been lonely when I did that."

"He had friends to keep him company," Syd says. "He had Oliver and Melanie."

"Yeah, but-- I don't think that was enough," Kerry admits. She looks pensive. 

"Dvd, what do you think about headmates for your system?" Syd asks.

Dvd hates how much he likes it. He hates that it's something they could have had and now it's too late. "I guess it's okay."

"We'll run it by David and Divad," Syd says, pleased. "Where are they now?"

Dvd looks. David and Divad aren't walking anymore, they're at the other end of the roof, sitting together and quietly talking. Dvd can't hear what they're saying -- they're stretched pretty far -- but he can still hear David's thoughts. He can hear David deepening his acceptance that they've shared their life together and everything that means, good and bad. Seeing Divad not as a separate person who shared his body, but as--

A headmate. Even if he doesn't know the word yet, that's the feeling David is starting to have for Divad. That they're part of each other, that they they've shared a single life together and always will. David wants to take care of Divad so they can heal together. He wants their system--

Dvd looks away, angry. "They don't need us," he mutters, then glares at Syd. "They don't need you."

Syd is startled. "Excuse me?"

"Are you stupid?" Dvd says, relishing the hurt in Syd's eyes. "David has Divad now. He doesn't need anyone else, so he sure as hell doesn't need _you_."

"Dvd, that's mean," Kerry chides. 

"He doesn't need you either," Dvd tells Kerry, and then regrets it but refuses to back down. "David only needs one person to take care of him. He made his choice."

"I'll believe that when I hear David say it himself," Syd says, unimpressed. "Kerry, I think Dvd is jealous. What do you think?"

"Oh, you are totally jealous," Kerry says, and pokes their chest with her finger.

"So what?" Dvd says, and pushes away Kerry's hand. "You should be jealous, too."

"We don't have to be," Kerry says, confident. "David loves all of us. He's not gonna stop just because he loves Divad. I can hear his thoughts too, remember? And I can hear yours."

Dvd scowls at her. He'd walk away but he knows they'd only follow him, and he doesn't want to be so loud that David will notice.

"David needs more than one person," Syd says. "I made that mistake, too. For him and for myself."

"I am nothing like you," Dvd tells her, the way he did before. Even though now-- What's the difference between what he did to David and what Syd did to them? "But you know what? If we're the same, then you don't deserve David either."

"Maybe I don't," Syd admits. "But he loves me and he wants us to try to work things out. Isn't that what David wants for you?"

"It totally is," Kerry tells her. 

"Will you stop that?" Dvd says, annoyed. "You're not supposed to tell Syd our thoughts."

"Sorry," Kerry says, backing down a little. "But of course David's gonna forgive you. He knows it wasn't your fault."

"He shouldn’t forgive me," Dvd tells her. "I hurt him. It’s my job to protect David from anything that hurts him.”

"I hurt him, too," Syd says. 

“And that’s why you should stay away from him,” Dvd warns. "Everyone who's ever hurt him should just stay away from him." Kerry and Syd both look unimpressed. Dvd gives them another scowl. "You don't understand."

"Then tell us," Syd says.

Dvd huffs, frustrated. There's nothing he can say that hasn't already been said, or thought and overheard. He's not Divad, he doesn't care about their stupid logical arguments. If he cared about stupid logical arguments he would have listened to Divad and he's never listened to Divad. 

Kerry frowns and looks to Syd for help. Syd thinks, and then--

"We are alike," Syd tells him, thinking aloud. "And that means-- Survival is part of your foundation, too. But not your own. David's survival. Right?"

"Obviously," Dvd says. 

"But now you know 'David' is all three of you," Syd offers. "So doesn't that change things?"

Dvd shifts his crossed arms.

"Yeah, you're all Davids," Kerry adds. "So all three of you matter the same. You and Divad even have David-David's fragments inside you, so-- You can't want to hurt yourself because that would mean hurting parts of David!"

Dvd's stomach drops. Shit. _Shit_ , he didn't think of that. "Then I have to give them back first," he decides.

"I thought you can't," Kerry says.

"I dunno, we never tried," Dvd admits. They had a monster in their head, they had to stick together. But could he even give back decades of fragments? What would happen to David if he did? There would be memories in them, lots of painful memories and feelings. Dvd doesn't want them, but giving them back-- 

Out of sheer curiosity, Dvd tries to remember _being_ the last fragment he fused with. A lot of anger fragments broke off from David while they were in Clockworks, and of course Dvd took them in. He was sure that they were what helped him break through the monster's control to protect David from the people who hurt them. Dvd couldn't do anything to stop Benny, but he stopped the orderlies. But now he just feels confused about all of that. And no matter how hard he tries, he can't will himself to not be that fragment anymore.

He curses under his breath and turns to lean against the railing. Divad was right. They can't unfuse.

"It's okay," Kerry soothes, rubbing his back. "We don't want you to unfuse. We just want you to be happy."

"Well I shouldn't be," Dvd tells her, stubbornly. "Divad shouldn't be either. We're just supposed to be what David needs us to be."

"David wants you to be happy," Syd points out. "He doesn't need you to be angry, he needs you to forgive yourself so you can be with him."

"And what do you know about that, huh?" Dvd challenges. "You said you've never had to forgive yourself because you _decided_ you weren't wrong. You know what that is? It's a load of _crap_."

Dvd is pleased to see his words hit the mark. But it's still not enough to chase Syd away.

"You're right," Syd says, quietly. "What I did to your system was wrong. And I do need to accept that. But then I need to forgive myself for it, because punishing myself won't help me. It won't undo what I did to you. It won't make us happy."

"Oh, it'll make me happy," Dvd promises.

"Will it?" Syd challenges. "I know how it feels to get revenge. I know how satisfying it is. I've used it to push people away and a lot of them deserved to be pushed. But then what? It's never made me less alone. It's never made me feel loved or cared for. It will never be enough." She pauses, reflecting. "That's what forgiveness is for. So we can keep the good things."

"I'm not a good thing," Dvd tells her. "David doesn't even want to think about me anymore. Don't you get it? I _hurt_ him, I'm _worthless_ to him."

"So you're garbage and you should be thrown out?" Syd challenges. "You didn't let David think that about himself, how can you think it about yourself when you're a David, too? When all those parts of him are parts of you? He still loves you, even though it hurts, because that's what David does. Are you giving up on him for his sake? Or because you can't get what you want from him anymore?"

"I am _not you_ ," Dvd snarls. 

"You're furious at the world for hurting you and you think your anger keeps you safe," Syd tells him, firmly. "But the anger is never enough. It's not enough to make the pain stop and it's not enough to heal your wounds. But there's one person in your life who does that, and he looks at you like you're the sun. But you hurt him anyway and without him-- Everything's cold because he was _your_ sun. And you want him back but maybe it's too late." 

Dvd stares at her.

"I have to believe it's not too late," Syd tells him. "And you have to believe it, too. Because David believes it. And him believing it makes it real."

"You don't know that," Dvd insists.

"You're the one who can hear his thoughts," Syd points out. "So you tell me."

Dvd doesn't need to listen. He knows David wants Syd back and he knows David wants Dvd back. David wants everyone back, he wants so much. But Dvd never wanted anything but what they had, and what they had was torture. Dvd tried to change and he failed. So he can't be part of David's new system because if he was, he would just make it torture all over again.

"Well you have to keep trying," Kerry tells him. "When my system changed, I didn't want to eat food or do any of this outside stuff. I was hurting my system because I was afraid. But Cary kept helping me try and it got easier. And sometimes Cary needs help, too. He was afraid of being inside me and that was hurting both of us, but we talked about it and now the pain is gone. We still need to figure stuff out, but-- It's okay because we'll do it together."

Dvd remembers Cary opening up to Kerry yesterday. He admitted he was scared and told Kerry he needed help. Dvd's never been the one who needed help. But he thinks Cary 's like that, too. He's the Dvd to Kerry's David, the one who kept her safe no matter what it cost him. And now Cary's inside of Kerry. They're together. 

"We are," Kerry agrees. "Because we're a system. We love each other and trust each other and-- When something's wrong we talk to each other so things can get better again. If you don't know how to be outside-- Then let your headmates help you. They want you to be happy, too."

Dvd feels a pang of longing. He almost feels like-- Maybe he could ask David, but-- "Divad doesn't want me to be happy," he insists. Divad has David now, why would he possibly want Dvd? All they've ever done is hurt each other.

"You just think that because that's how you felt," Kerry tells him. "You had David so you didn't care about anything else, and you pushed Divad away. But that's-- You being stuck in your trauma."

"Oh, is it?" Dvd challenges.

"Yeah, it is," Kerry says. "And it's stupid. So don't do it anymore."

Dvd gives her a disbelieving look. "What, it's that easy?" he challenges.

"I didn't say it was easy," Kerry says. "So what? You did lots of stuff that was hard but you did it for David. I was outside for Cary at first, and now I'm outside for me. So be outside for David until you can figure out how to be outside for yourself."

Dvd turns and looks at David and Divad, still sitting together and talking. He hates being apart from them. It's bad enough they can't share their body, but all this isolation-- He hates it. It's awful. He just wants to be with David again.

"So go be with him," Kerry coaxes. "Tell him what's wrong. Let him help."

"I can't," Dvd says, pained. "I hurt him."

"Okay," Syd says, thinking. "Tell me how you hurt him."

Dvd gives her a disbelieving look.

"I'm serious," Syd says. "Let's break it down. If you figure out what you did wrong, then you can avoid making the same mistakes, right? So what did you do wrong?"

"Everything," Dvd insists. At Syd's disbelieving look, Dvd huffs. "I loved him."

"Okay," Syd says. "And what does loving him mean? What did you actually do?"

"I--" Dvd hesitates. "I gave him what I thought he needed."

"So you didn't ask him what he wanted," Syd offers. "You acted on your own, even though your decisions affected your whole system. Like this morning, when you tried to take David away from me."

"I guess," Dvd admits. Ptonomy talked to them a lot about that. About-- What to do in a crisis. He's supposed to use their new system mantra, but-- He didn't want to think about any of that. He still doesn't feel like any of it is for him.

Maybe his foundation work isn't. But they agreed on their system mantra together. 

_We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop._ The words still mean a lot to Dvd, now that he's able to think about them again. It just hurt so much--

"Ptonomy pushed you guys really hard today," Kerry says. "You had to talk about a lot of awful stuff. So that was a lot of shocks, and Davids don't do well with shocks. But that's okay because we're keeping all of you safe. And now the shocks are wearing off."

The shocks are wearing off. Dvd realizes she's right.

But going back to David and Divad, asking them for help-- Dvd doesn't know if he can do it. To be the one on the outside trying to get back in-- It must have been awful for Divad, all those years. Divad will just rub it in his face. 

"I don't think he'll be mean," Kerry says. "Divad was helping you with your foundation work, right? This is foundation work, too." She considers him. "We can go with you, if you want? So you don't have to do it alone."

"Maybe," Dvd says, but her offer makes him feel better. He doesn't want to face this alone. He's never had to face anything alone. No matter how bad things got, they always had each other.

"C'mon, let's go over now," Kerry says, taking their hand. "Where are they?"

"Uh, over there," Dvd gestures. Kerry starts pulling him along, and Dvd looks back to Syd for help. Syd just smiles and follows after them.

David and Divad notice their approach and stand up to meet them. They both look wary.

"Um," Dvd starts. Shit. This was a bad idea. He can't forgive himself and Divad will never forgive him-- And what if he hurts David again? He didn't even know he was hurting David before. He can't let it happen again. 

"Dvd?" David asks, still wary but also-- Worried. For Dvd? He shouldn't be.

Kerry gives their hand a squeeze. "Me and Dvd found a new word for our systems to use," she says. "Y'know, instead of brothers. I really like it. Dvd, you wanna tell them?"

"Um. It's headmates," Dvd says, quietly. "You're my headmates." He wants that so much it hurts. He looks at them, uncertain. Maybe they hate it. Maybe they hate him.

"Headmates," David tries, then gives a soft smile. "I like that. You're my headmates."

"I like it, too," Divad says. "Dvd--"

"Wait," Dvd says, holding up their free hand. But then he doesn't know what to say. He needs help. He needs--

That's what he needs to say.

"I need help," he admits. "I want us to be together, I hate being--" He chokes up and tries again. "I don't know how to be a person." He looks to David, pleading. "All I've ever been was part of you. I never ever wanted to hurt you. I'm sorry, and-- If you hate me--" Tears well in their eyes.

"I don't hate you," David sighs. "Dvd, I'm not angry."

"You hurt when you think about me," Dvd mourns.

"I do," David admits. "All the things I learned today--" He shakes his head. "I know why you didn't want to tell me, but I needed to know. And now I need time to figure out how I feel, but--" He looks at Divad. "We're a system. We've always been a system." He turns back to Dvd. "And that means everything Divad told me about Benny-- You had to go through that, too. I'm so sorry I did that to you."

"I didn't come over for you to apologize to me!" Dvd sputters. 

"We all have things we need forgiveness for," David admits. "Whether it was our fault or not. Even though I couldn't have known about you-- I'm really sorry. I'm even apologizing to myself! I didn't think I'd ever do that, but--" He shrugs. He gives Dvd a hopeful look.

"Like I'm not gonna forgive you," Dvd says, grumpily. "Of course I forgive you!"

David brightens. "Then you forgive Divad? And yourself?"

How is this happening? "I guess I can try," Dvd relents, and gives a long-suffering sigh.

"He must be feeling better, he's back to being a pain," Divad says, but when Dvd turns to glare at him he sees Divad giving him a wry smile. Oh. It was a joke?

"Divad was talking to me about how he wants to go back to college," David says. "He thinks I need to start thinking beyond therapy, and that's-- It's hard for me. Being in Clockworks, being sick-- Even with the fake memories-- I've been awful at being a person, too. So it's not just you."

"We're gonna figure it out together," Divad tells Dvd. "As a system. And that includes you, whether you like it or not. _Headmate._ "

There's a part of Dvd that just wants to hold on to his anger, even his anger at himself. But he doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want to give up the good things. Even if that means giving up almost everything he's ever known. Their old system was a disaster anyway. Change is scary, but-- As long as they're doing it together--

He turns to Kerry and Syd. "Um, would it be okay if-- Can you hold on to our body for us? I need to be with my headmates."

"Of course," Syd says. 

"I got you," Kerry says, taking firm hold of him. Dvd steps out, and their body slumps in her grip. Syd hesitates, then helps Kerry with it.

"Come back to the garden when you're ready," Syd says, and the two of them head back to the benches. 

Dvd watches them go, then turns back to his headmates. He really does like the sound of that. Brothers never felt right, even if it was what David needed. And all those different names for different identities in Syd's book-- If they're just headmates, it doesn't matter if they're fragments or alters or what job they're supposed to do. All that matters is that they're a system.

They don’t have to hurt their system and they never did. If they love each other and work together, the pain will stop.

"So, um," Dvd starts. He looks at David and Divad's held hands with longing. But David doesn't hold out his hand, and he avoids Dvd's eyes.

Dvd is immediately crushed. David doesn't want Dvd to touch him, just like Syd. It's bad enough they can't share their body together, now they can't even holds hands? This is the worst. He should have stayed in their body, at least then he'd have Kerry. Hell, he doesn't care if Syd touches him, she could hold his hand.

"Hey," Divad says, and Dvd looks up. Divad is holding out his hand. "Sit down with us?" Divad sits, pulling David down with him, and he offers his hand for Dvd again.

Dvd sits beside them. He looks at the city around them, at their friends over in the garden, at their body resting on a bench like it’s napping. Everything is calm. He turns back to his headmates. He takes Divad's hand. It feels a lot like David's hand, of course. Because they're all Davids.

'Thanks,' he sends to Divad.

Divad quirks a smile. 'You're welcome.' "So you were asking for our help?" he prompts.

"Yeah," Dvd says, looking at his headmates. He's relieved to see David looking at him openly, hopefully. Even if David isn't ready to be touched by Dvd, he still cares. He still wants to help. And maybe when David's feeling better-- 

Dvd realizes he really is like Syd. But maybe that's not an awful thing. Maybe it's not so scary that the three of them have a relationship with her. It's not the same as it is with Amy and Kerry, it's more complicated, but-- David wanted them all to work things out and Divad's been doing it, Dvd isn't going to be left out of that. He's not going to be left out of their new system. They're doing all of this healing stuff together, like they've always done everything-- Even if the way they work is different.


	108. Day 11: All the makings of a strong foundation.

By the time they get back to the lab, David's worn out even as a mental projection. So while everyone else has dinner, David and Divad take the sofa. David stretches out with his head on Divad's lap, and rests as Divad strokes his fingers through his hair, occasionally brushing his face, his neck, his arm. It's somehow exactly what David needs, and he wonders how Divad knows. But then his tired brain reminds him that of course he knows. They've probably done this a thousand times. 

"Not that many," Divad says, with soft regret. "But Dvd did it after-- I stopped."

David makes a small noise, just accepting. He's too tired for regret or resistance, and he feels like he's moving past those things anyway. His headmates are real and they've always been together. They always will be together. That's just the truth. 

Looking across the room, David sees Dvd's quiet smile, a response to his thought. It makes David feel better to see that. He doesn't want to have this physical distance between them. He can't explain it, but-- The closer the three of them get, the closer David wants them to be. 

"We'll get there," Divad soothes. "Just rest."

David gives another soft assent and closes his eyes. He's so tired. He feels a blanket drape over him, and keeps following the steady brush of Divad's hand.

"David. David. David."

The sound of his name pulls David from a light doze. He cracks open his eyes to see things have changed while he napped. Dinner's over, everyone's gathered around the sitting area again, and on the coffee table-- 

Two trays of ceramic pieces. And a bottle of glue, and some supplies--

He sits up, immediately awake. He looks to Divad. "Are we--"

Divad nods, pleased.

David pushes aside the blanket and rubs his face, trying to get his brain to start working again. They're going to do it, they're really going to fix his rocket lamp. After the day they had, after-- God, it was all so much. He can't believe he almost-- All of them almost--

But they didn't. Everyone helped them through it. It feels like, for the first time-- They're really going to be okay.

"We're really glad to hear that," Ptonomy says. He's sitting with Oliver, as usual. David looks around, getting his bearings. Syd and Dvd each have a bean bag chair. Amy and Lenny are snuggled in the other loveseat, and Kerry's standing next to the sofa. 

"Um, you can sit down now," David tells her. "Third cushion."

"Thanks!" Kerry says, brightly, and sits beside him. Even though they can't touch, it's nice to be close.

"David," Ptonomy says, drawing his focus. "Yesterday, when we took your lamp apart, we thought it would help you to see us put it together. We wanted to help you accept that you're not doing this alone. But we realized that, as important as that is, we can help you with something even more important: to accept that the three of you are doing this together."

David looks to his headmates. He takes Divad's hand. 

"We're all going to help the three of you," Ptonomy says. "I think with all of us together, it'll be easy to get the gluing done tonight."

Kerry gets off the sofa and kneels at the coffee table. She takes the glue. "C'mon. We got this. Who wants to start?"

"How about Dvd starts?" Syd suggests. She gets out of her chair and kneels, copying Kerry. Everyone else does, too.

Dvd looks over the pieces. "Um, okay," he says, nervous. He gives David a meaningful look, then Divad, then back down at the trays. "Red's from the bottom."

"How about one of the fins?" Syd suggests, pointing one out.

Dvd takes it. He turns the piece in his hands, then looks for a match. "Ah, there," he says, point at the far corner near David. 

"This one?" Amy asks, picking up a red piece.

"Yeah," Dvd says. He takes it from her and checks to see if they match. They do.

"Here, I'll put the glue on," Kerry says. Dvd holds out the pieces and she dabs on the glue. "Now press them together tight."

Dvd lines the pieces back up and carefully presses them together. 

"I'll hold them together until they set," Syd offers. "You can help your headmates find the next match."

"Can you turn that one over?" Divad asks, pointing at a blue piece. "David, do you see a match?"

David looks. It hasn't been long since he did this the first time. "That one, I think," he says. Dvd takes them and tries to fit them together. It's a match, and Kerry glues them, and Lenny takes them to hold them together. 

The first pieces match up quickly, but then they get to the smaller fragments and it gets trickier. As matches dry, they're set on the table to be matched again. Gradually, several large chunks start to come together. 

David is peering intently at some small pieces with silver paint when Divad taps him on the shoulder. "Hey, you guys wanna try something?"

"Uh, sure?" David says. "What is it?"

"It's a kind of sharing," Divad says. "We did it before, sort of, with the name cards."

"Oh," David says, and then it sinks in. "Oh! Uh-- I'm not sure--" That wasn't easy for him.

"I thought you didn't want to share?" Dvd asks Divad, warily.

"I don't," Divad admits. "Not like we did. But that doesn't mean--" He pauses. "Being projected all the time is hard for me, too," he admits. "I miss being together in our body. Maybe we are like Cary and Kerry. It doesn't hurt, but--" He gives Dvd a vulnerable look.

"Yeah," Dvd says, softly. 

"I think-- I feel it too?" David says. "But-- My possession trauma--"

"I think we can work around it," Divad says. "Dvd's the one in our body, so-- David, you shouldn't feel possessed. And if it's just our hand-- Maybe that will help you feel in control, like Lenny and Syd."

"I can't do what you do," Dvd protests. "I can't receive."

"You don't have to," Divad says. "We just have to work together. Say what we want to do and take it slow. That's what we've been doing, right? C'mon, it's worth a shot."

"Why'd you bring this up all of a sudden?" Dvd asks, suspicious.

"Because if we're fixing our lamp together-- I want us to fix it _together_ ," Divad says. "I want us to be able to share while we're all awake. It's nothing like the way we shared before, but I think that's why we need to do it."

"So it's-- Healthy sharing?" David tries. 

"Exactly," Divad says. "Ptonomy, what do you think?"

"I think it's definitely worth a shot," Ptonomy says. "David, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. You've been through a lot today. You could try it tomorrow?"

David thinks about it. Even after his nap he's still pretty tired, he'd prefer to do this when he's rested, and yet-- Divad has a point. If they're putting their lamp back together as-- A symbol of their system's recovery-- Then if they can manage to put even one part of it together while they're physically _together_ \-- Then every time they look at the lamp, they'll remember that. It would be such a powerful, good memory to have.

"I want to try," David decides.

"Dvd, you're the last holdout," Divad says. "I never thought you'd be the one who _doesn't_ want to share."

"Of course I want to share!" Dvd protests. He hesitates, but then-- "Oh all right."

He stands up, and goes over to the sofa side, while Kerry sits next to Syd. Dvd sits between Divad and David.

"Now what?" Dvd asks.

"Let's do a test first," Divad says. "Relax our body and put our hands on the table." Dvd complies. "David, you just watch."

Divad brings his right hand over, and it looks like he's going to hold Dvd's hand. But his hand sinks inside. 

"Okay," Divad tells Dvd. "Now we both raise our hand. Ah ah-- Not so fast! That's better."

David watches as they practice raising their hand up and down. It seems like-- Divad's hand is stuck inside their body.

"Not stuck," Divad says. "Any more than you're stuck when you're the one in our body. It's like-- Magnets, not glue."

"Magnets," David mulls. He thinks about how when he enters their body, it sort of-- Attaches to him. It snaps into place. And then it's not their body, it's his body. Well, it's still their body, but--

"Are you ready to give it a try?" Divad asks.

"Okay," David says, bracing himself. He has control. He can pull his hand out whenever he wants. 

"It's just like holding hands," Divad says. "And you're the one holding Dvd's hand."

David hesitates again.

"Shit," Dvd mutters. He looks pained. "Look, it was a nice idea. But it's not--"

Before he can stop himself, David slaps his hand down on the table, right into Dvd's left hand. "Fuck the shit beetle," David says, tightly. 

Dvd stares at their joined hands and keeps completely still.

"David?" Divad prompts, concerned.

David reminds himself he's in control. He's in control. _He's in control._ Magnets, not glue. Lenny and Syd did this, he can do it, too. _He's not going to let his asshole parasite keep his system from putting itself back together._

"What do we do next?" David asks, focusing very intently.

"Take it slow," Ptonomy cautions.

"Uh, how about-- We raise our thumb?" Dvd suggests. "On three. One, two--"

There's a tug as Dvd raises their thumb a fraction faster than David, and David's stomach wobbles. But they match and hold still, and the tug goes away.

"Okay," David says, breathless. "Uh."

"Take your hand out," Divad says, a gentle command. "So you know you can."

David pulls his hand away. It's shaking, a little. He's not sure he can put it back in.

"Hey, that was a really good start," Divad says, soothingly. "It was hard for Lenny and Syd, too."

"It wasn't enough," David says, upset with himself, with his _weakness_.

"Hey, there's nothing weak about what you just did," Lenny tells him. "You can't call yourself weak without calling me and Syd weak, too. And you're not gonna do that, right?"

"No," David admits. "Sorry."

Divad takes his hand out, too. "Okay. How about-- Dvd gets two pieces lined up for us. And then we reach in and join him to push them together. Nice and quick. How about that?"

That sounds-- Manageable. "Okay," David agrees. 

"The base parts are almost ready," Syd points out. "You could slide them together on the table."

"That sounds perfect," Ptonomy says. "We'll get those ready. Then you three can bring it all together."

There's a flurry of activity as everyone sorts through the remaining pieces for base fragments and glues them together, and the result is-- Three pieces of red and silver, each with a fin. 

"Excellent," Oliver declares. "All the makings of a strong foundation." 

"Dvd, do a test before I put the glue on," Kerry says.

Dvd lines the three pieces up so they're almost together. Then he puts his hands around them and squeezes, closing the thin gaps. He picks up the base and inspects it. "Looks good," he says, and gives it to her for the glue.

When the pieces are lined up again, Dvd puts his hands back in place.

"Okay, just like before," Divad says. "David, we'll put our hands in and squeeze, like Dvd did, and Dvd will squeeze with us. As soon as the pieces are together, we'll pull our hands away. Okay?"

"Okay," David says, and braces himself. He can do this. Nice and quick. And then they'll have made the lamp base together while sharing their body. He put in his wish list that he wants good memories. This will be a good memory.

"On three," Dvd says. "One, two--"

David and Divad push their hands into Dvd's, and then they squeeze tight, bringing the base together. David holds on as long as he can, and then pulls himself free. Divad follows suit, but Dvd holds the base together, steady.

"We did it," David says, relieved it's done and slowly elated that they actually did it. They did it and now-- There's real, solid proof that they did it. The base of their lamp wouldn't be one piece if they hadn't done it. God, he just wants to take it and put it with all the other things he's gathered up, with the family photo and the writing practice and the scans and the name cards.

"That was fantastic work," Ptonomy tells them. "All three of you should be really proud of what you just did together."

David looks at his headmates, and all of them smile at each other and at the lamp base. It feels better than David imagined. It feels _wonderful_.

"Let's get the rest of this put together," Ptonomy encourages. 

They continue the same way. Everyone else assembles the small pieces into large ones, and then they give them to the Davids for the final step. Every addition to the rocket lifts David higher and gives him the strength to put the next piece in. And then the cone goes on and-- It's done.

"We did it," David says, sitting back, amazed. He's shaking, he feels overcome and victorious and at least a dozen other things at once. He never thought putting their lamp back together would feel so huge. But it was. And they did. They put their lamp back together, _together_.

It still needs a lot of work. The paint is a mess, some glue dripped out, and there's still the chips and gaps that were there when David taped it back together on his own. But he trusts that his friends will help them fix it. And they'll get the motor fixed and the shade back on, and their lamp will be-- It'll be _whole_.

David starts crying.

"Oh no," Dvd says, worried.

"I'm okay," David says, even though he can't stop crying and he's still shaking--

Dvd steps away, and Divad slides over and pulls David into his arms. David holds onto him tightly.

"Just let it out," Divad soothes. 

David can't stop anyway. He feels like-- A huge tension is releasing from him, and his whole body is in shock from that. Divad keeps holding him and soothing him, and David finds himself smiling through his tears, interrupted by little hiccups.

By the time he runs out of tears, David's run out of everything. He slumps against Divad, utterly spent, but-- Strangely light. When he has the strength, he sits up and wipes at his face. God, he needed that. And now he needs to lie down and stay down. 

"Let's get David to bed," Ptonomy says. "You two can join him when you're ready."

"Can we put the lamp by our bed?" David asks. He hated not having it there last night.

"I don't see why not," Ptonomy says. "Dvd, could you bring it over?"

"Be careful," Kerry urges.

"I'm not gonna let it break," Dvd says, certain. He picks up the lamp with absolute care and carries it over to the sleeping area. 

"Thank you," David tells everyone, even though he feels like no amount of thanks will ever be enough. 

"David says thanks," Lenny relays to Syd. 

Syd smiles and looks over at Dvd as he carefully places the lamp onto their bedside table. She turns back to the sofa. "I'm glad we could help," she says, quietly pleased. "Sleep well, okay?"

David tiredly smiles back to her, but she can't see it. 

Divad helps David to the bed, and David lies back with a sigh. He looks at the lamp. He can almost imagine it whole again. It'll be whole. He can't get over that. He doesn't want to get over it. 

"We made some really good memories today," Divad tells him. He rests his hand on David's head, strokes it the way he did before. "And we're gonna make more tomorrow. And every day after that, okay?" There's tears in his eyes now, and Dvd looks like he's close behind.

"We will," David agrees. And he believes it.


	109. Day 11: What you need is a notebook.

“Dvd? Divad? Are you two okay?” 

Dvd looks up from David to see Amy’s come over to check on them. She doesn’t take the seat beside him, correctly assuming that Divad is sitting in it. 

Yes, Dvd thinks. No. Yes. He wipes at their eyes. 

“We’re okay,” Divad says, softly. He wipes his eyes, too. “Can we stay up a while longer?”

“Of course,” Amy says. “Can I keep you company?”

Divad looks at him, and Dvd nods. “Please,” Divad tells her. 

Amy smiles and brings over another chair, sets it next to theirs. She offers her hand to Dvd and he takes it. 

Dvd glances over at everyone else, keeping an eye them as he always does. All of them are patients in some way as well as helpers, but David’s the one who needs the most help. Now that he’s out for the night, everyone is relaxing, letting down their guard. As if David is the one they’re defending themselves against instead of the shit beetle. 

But Dvd gets it. It’s a lot of work, all this helping. It’s been hard on him, too, but it’s worth it. David shared their body today, just a little, and that makes everything worth it. Dvd closes his eyes and remembers the feeling of David’s hand with his, moving together. It was strange sharing that way, but it was wonderful. David thought it was wonderful. He loved being with his headmates, sharing with them, being close to them. He wants to be closer. He wants—

Dvd squeezes Amy’s hand, overcome again. They’re getting David back. They’re actually getting him back. After everything the monster did to David, to all of them, they’re actually— He lets out a shuddering breath, tears of relief in their eyes. He looks at the lamp they glued back together and he's afraid to accept the hope it gave David but can't deny it either. 

The sound of the printer gets his attention, and he sees Ptonomy collecting printouts. When he has them all, a lot of them, he brings them over to Syd.

"These are for you," Ptonomy says. "They're the transcripts of the conversations we had with the Davids today. No thoughts, just the things they said aloud."

"Oh, wow," Syd says, wide-eyed. "Thank you."

"We wanted to relay to you more consistently, but— It's not always possible," Ptonomy admits. "We'll have the other conversations you missed in the morning, including the things that happened when you were out."

Syd starts flipping through the pages. "This will be really helpful." She looks over at Dvd. "Is this okay with you two?"

"Tell her yes," Divad says. 

"Yeah, it's fine," Dvd relays. He's still not entirely comfortable with Syd, but— She helped all of them a lot today. Dvd doesn't want to share his thoughts with her, but he doesn't mind her knowing what they've said. 

"Thank you, Dvd, Divad," Syd says, and gives them one of her little smiles.

Dvd shrugs and goes back to staring at David. Staring at David is something he can deal with.

"Oh, Ptonomy," Syd says. "I was wondering— Can you give me access to the surveillance videos? I want to watch what happened in the courtroom. From the perspective of the present."

"Of course," Ptonomy says. "I'll set you up at Cary's workstation."

The two of them head off to do that, and Dvd shifts his focus to Kerry and Oliver. Oliver's checking on Cary again.

"He's been asleep all day," Kerry complains. "He has to wake up soon."

"I'm sure he won't be much longer," Oliver assures her. "Perhaps the two of you need to share sleep, like me and my body, and the Davids."

"Maybe," Kerry says, but she's not pleased. "I don't like sleeping without him."

"But you're not," Oliver says. 

"It's different like this," Kerry pouts. "I know I have to take care of him now, but— I miss him."

"I think I do, too," Oliver says. Kerry hugs him and he holds her, pensive.

Which just leave Lenny. She's breaking the rules, of course, sitting on her own. She looks pensive, too. And pensive and Lenny aren't a good combination.

David didn't tell them to make up with Lenny the way he did with Amy and Syd, probably because there's nothing for Lenny to make up for. The things Farouk did to them as her, the things David thought she did as Benny— Lenny had nothing to do with any of it. Divad was never shy about not liking her, but that was just him being mad about the drugs. Lenny was there for them in Clockworks, and she's been there for them since Farouk let her go. 

Or there for David. Lenny's very clearly been there for _David_. Not that she's ignored Dvd and Divad or anything. She's only been back with them properly for a couple of days, and she was a patient for most of today, not a helper. But if they're supposed to do this healing thing together and that's what's going to keep them safe, then there's a gap in their defenses that needs to be closed.

"Hey, can you stay with David?" Dvd asks Amy. "Me and Divad gotta do something."

"We do?" Divad asks.

"Of course," Amy tells them, and gives them an encouraging look. She must have heard what Dvd was thinking and she’s giving her support. It makes Dvd feel more confident, knowing Amy's got their back. They still have stuff to work out, but— She's their sister. If Divad and David have both made peace with her—

"C'mon," Dvd tells Divad, and they head over to the sitting area. Lenny's still in the loveseat, with Amy's spot empty. "Okay if I sit there?" he asks her.

Lenny glances up at him, visibly remembers he's not David, and then shrugs. "Whatever."

Dvd sits down, and Divad takes the coffee table, already cleared from the lamp rebuilding. "Divad's there," Dvd tells her.

"What, no cat?" Lenny asks.

"Huh?" Dvd says, confused.

Lenny waves it off. "So what's the intervention for?"

"It's not an intervention," Dvd says, wrinkling his nose. They've had enough of those things. "No one sits alone, right? We noticed you were alone, so— Now you got us."

"So you left Amy alone?" Lenny asks. She doesn't look especially thrilled by their company.

"Amy's with David," Dvd reminds her. "What, we're not good enough to sit with you?"

"I didn't say that," Lenny defends. "Look, I just— Got a lot to think about, okay?"

"That's why Ptonomy made the rule," Divad reminds her. "Sitting alone and thinking too much is bad for all of us."

"Kerry says talking is nutritious," Dvd offers. 

"You're not gonna quit, are you?" Lenny asks, exasperated.

"Nope," Dvd says, proudly. "Davids don't quit."

"Don't I know it," Lenny mutters. "Look, today's been a lot, okay? And you don't wanna talk about all that stuff any more than I do."

"The Benny stuff?" Dvd asks.

"What else?" Lenny asks. "Turns out making a cocktail out of me and Benny was a bigger leap than I thought."

"So?" Dvd asks. "You should be relieved."

"Well I'm not," Lenny says, defensive. "It's really fucking weird, okay? It's like that stupid thing people say about having sex with all the people that the person you're banging had sex with. Except it's rape and we can't remember it. Me and David can't, anyway." She looks away. " _Fuck_."

"None of that happened to you," Divad reminds her.

"Yeah, well I sure as hell remember it," Lenny says. "Or enough of it. Kerry thinks me and Benny are some kind of system, but it's not like that. I just remember being a me version of him. Sometimes I feel more like that Lenny than whoever I actually used to be, so what does that make me?"

"But you got your old memories back," Divad points out. 

"And Oliver's got his body back," Lenny replies. "It didn't magically make all the bad shit go away. And now I don't have _my_ body, so fuck me, right?"

Dvd has to admit this is more than he knows how to handle. He looks to Divad for help. Divad gives him an annoyed look for dragging them into this.

"Look," Divad says to Lenny. "Farouk needed you so he could get David to trust him. Not the Benny-David who was trying to destroy himself, the Lenny-David who you helped him become. We were there, remember? David wouldn't have gotten better without you. He wouldn't have been healthy enough to want things again without you, so he wouldn't have asked Syd out without you."

"And they wouldn't have kissed and swapped bodies and killed me," Lenny grumbles.

"No, but if they hadn't, you'd still be a red," Divad says. "And so would we, no matter what color they put us in. You saved us, Lenny. You saved us a _lot_. Whatever bad shit Farouk put in you, it's his, not yours. You're still the Lenny we remember, and _we remember_ , okay?"

"Okay, okay," Lenny says, surrendering. "Did you have that speech saved up or something?"

Divad eases. "I told David a lot of terrible things, so I'm stocking up on good things to tell him to make up for that. But I guess they're for you, too. Because you're a good thing in our life, and— We don't want to lose any of the good things. Right Dvd?"

"Right," Dvd agrees. "Syd said forgiveness is how you keep the good things. We don't have anything to forgive you for, but— David said sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes you need forgiveness anyway." He glances at Divad, then back to Lenny. "So I forgive you, okay? I forgive Lenny and Lenny-Benny for whatever not-your-fault shit you feel guilty about. Got it?"

"Are you serious?" Lenny asks, half-amused, but also— _Needing_.

"I forgive you, too," Divad adds. "Lenny and Lenny-Benny. You're clean by us. All sins absolved. And when David's awake we'll make sure he tells you, too, because there's no way he's not gonna forgive you."

"You guys are completely ridiculous," Lenny protests, but the pain in her eyes has lessened.

"Yup," Dvd says, proudly. 

Lenny rolls her eyes, relaxes. But there's still something bothering her. 

"You need us to wake David up so he’ll forgive you now?" Dvd teases.

Lenny gives him a look for that. "Let the poor guy sleep, geez. Bad enough Ptonomy runs him into the ground every day." She sighs. "It's just—" She looks away. "Those years were ours. And now—"

"Now they're not," Divad says, understanding. "They were the foundation of the friendship you and David remember."

"Yeah," Lenny says, quietly.

"The shit beetle fucked all of us over," Divad says. "But he didn't take everything. You still have six years together. Maybe it was in the worst place in the world, but— Those years are still yours. And ours. Don't think of it as losing three years of David. Think of it as— Gaining twelve years of us. Collectively."

"Eighteen years of Clockworks?" Lenny asks, fake-alarmed. "Gee, thanks."

"You're welcome," Divad says, pleased. Then he looks thoughtful. "Hey, you know— Maybe letting go of those Benny years— That'll help you not be the person in those memories."

"Maybe," Lenny says, and looks thoughtful, too. She sighs. "I can't believe you guys loved Benny."

"It's complicated," Divad admits.

"What isn't?" Lenny points out.

"It's like Ptonomy said," Divad says. "We never learned to have boundaries. Whatever David felt, whatever he wanted— We had to feel and want, too."

"So you felt what David felt for me?" Lenny asks, curious. "And Syd?"

"Yeah," Divad admits. "It wasn't all we felt, but— It was like—" He pauses, thinking. "We shared our body, even when we couldn't control it anymore. The feelings inside it— They were hard to resist. If we wanted to just be ourselves, we had to go to our bedroom."

"That's— Kind of how it felt being in Farouk," Lenny says. "No boundaries. Like, the longer I was in him— The more I _was_ him. I mean, when David said he saw Farouk's thoughts in my head— I wasn't even surprised. What was weird was having my _own_ thoughts."

"How do you feel now?" Dvd asks, a little wary.

"I dunno," Lenny admits. "It was easier when I had my body. I could sort of— Feel what was me in it. I think— That's why I got confused. The mainframe does a lot for us, but it can't give me that."

"That's good, though," Divad says. "When you get your body back, you'll know what's you again."

"Gotta get there first," Lenny says. 

"If your brain's a computer, can't you just erase the bad stuff?" Dvd asks, then falters. "Not that erasing yourself is a good idea."

"Yeah, no shit," Lenny says, pointedly. "And the whole reason I got hired in the first place is because I know what we're facing. I'm not much good if I'm like Oliver. I can't just wipe it all out. But maybe— I can sort of— Dissociate from the Lenny-Benny stuff. It's not mine, right? It's just stuff I happen to know."

"It's not yours," Divad agrees. "And David knows that, he doesn't want you to carry that."

"It's weird," Lenny says. "All those fake memories feel a lot more real than my real ones. It's like— Trying to be me feels like— I'm convincing myself I don't exist." 

"You definitely exist," Dvd tells her.

"Do I?" Lenny asks. She says it lightly, but it feels serious anyway. "I know the mainframe checked me out, but—" She gestures at her body. "None of this is real. Nothing in his head was real. And what was real about the rest of my life?"

"Look," Divad says, frowning. "Until pretty recently— We didn't want to be real either. But it wasn't true for me and Dvd and it's not true for you. You said we're all the ship of Theseus. Okay, well, if you want to talk philosophy, how about Descartes? I think therefore I am."

"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am," Lenny corrects. She taps her head. "Gotta love that mainframe."

"Fine," Divad says, clearly annoyed to be out-geeked by Lenny. "'That cannot doubt which does not think, and that cannot think which does not exist.' Mutants are living proof that our souls are the essence of our selves. You wanna talk real? That's what's real."

"So it’s all about our souls?" Lenny presses. “Farouk said souls are clay.”

“Why does anyone listen to that asshole?” Dvd complains. “You, David, Syd, none of you shut up about him. He’s a manipulative liar, why do you think anything he says is the truth?”

Lenny holds up her hands in surrender. “Geez, I was just asking.”

“Sorry,” Dvd says, backing down. “I’m just really sick of it. Just because the shit beetle makes some grand statement, that doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s probably the opposite.”

“So what, souls are the one thing that can’t change?” Lenny challenges. “What about detachment syndrome?”

“What, you mean the disease that no one understands and we’ve only known about for five minutes?” Dvd scoffs. “Please.”

“You realize he has nothing to back any of this up,” Divad points out. “Like, genuinely nothing.”

“Hey, I’ve got common sense,” Dvd says, tapping their head. “Which is more than anyone else here’s got. _Don’t trust the monster._ ”

“All this metaphysics stuff is Cary’s thing,” Lenny says, dismissive. “He can figure it out when he stops hibernating.”

"Okay," Divad says. "Then forget about the science. We're all changing, right? So it doesn't matter who you were. Who do you _want_ to be? What's on your wish list?"

"Getting my body back," Lenny says. "And then—" She falters. "I dunno. Eating, fucking, getting high enough to forget all of this forever?"

"That's it?" Divad presses. "We stop Farouk and you get your body back. We all take that tropical vacation and you live it up for a while. Then what?"

"I don't know!" Lenny admits. "I never wanted to live on some stupid farm, but— I get why David felt that way. All I've ever wanted was get away from the bullshit, but what I got was more bullshit."

"What you need is a notebook," Divad decides.

Lenny groans in protest.

"Dvd, go get her one," Divad says. "And a pen. We're gonna help Lenny get started on her foundation."

Dvd goes over to Cary's work area. Syd is watching the surveillance footage, headphones on and deeply focused. She's might have been watching the courtroom footage to start, but now it looks like she's going back through everything Division 3 has on David. He quietly grabs a notebook and pen and goes back to the loveseat.

"You've had to listen to all of us do this, so you know how this works," Divad tells Lenny. He summons Dvd's notebook and holds it out for Dvd to reference. "We'll start simple. Dvd, read out your foundation and change the name. Lenny, write this down."

"I knew I was gonna get dragged into this," Lenny mutters, but opens the notebook. "Let's just get it over with."

Dvd looks over his foundation work. He was barely able to bring himself to write it earlier, he felt so awful. He still feels wary about all this people stuff. But his headmates have theirs and he's not going to get left out. "I am Lenny. I survived. I didn’t deserve what happened to me. I belong to myself. Lenny is love."

"Slow down," Lenny protests. Her handwriting is kind of clumsy, like Dvd's. Seeing that makes this easier, somehow. "I belong to myself," she says aloud when she finishes. "Guess I'll be taking my own advice on that one."

"Now the mantra," Divad says.

"There are things I lost that I’ll never get back," Dvd reads to her, pausing after each sentence. "But I’m here and I’m not alone. I’m loved and there’s no shame in love. I’m strong enough to heal. I'm not doing this alone."

Maybe he feels all of that a little more now. He has his headmates, he has their friends and Amy. And he's always been strong. Being strong enough to heal will mean being strong enough to destroy the shit beetle once and for all. Dvd pictures trapping him in a jar and crushing him with their mind until he pops. It's glorious.

He reads out the stuff about love and saying no, and Lenny writes all of that.

"Now the wish list," Divad says. "That has to be all you."

"I know the first one," Lenny says. "Get my body back." She writes it. "And the tropical vacation. And eat like, an entire feast. And get laid. And high."

"That's a good start," Divad says. "What about after that? When the vacation's over. How about college?"

"Uh, hard pass," Lenny says. "Let's do the last part."

"The therapy list," Divad says. "Okay. Dvd, read out yours. But one line at a time, so we can talk about it."

"Accept help," Dvd reads.

"That's an easy one," Lenny says, and just writes that down.

"Easier said than done," Divad warns.

"Stop punishing my system," Dvd reads.

"I don't punish myself," Lenny declares. 

Divad thinks. He pulls out a loose sheet of paper. Syd's foundation work. "Syd put down 'leave my old refuge.' Punishment is our system's refuge. What's yours?"

Lenny taps the end of her pen against her teeth. "Uh, candy, drugs, and pussy?"

"Hedonism," Divad summarizes. 

"Having a good time," Lenny counters. "I'm not gonna give that up."

"Syd's refuge was like ours," Divad says. "Pain made her feel safe because that's what she was taught. If your life was so great before, why'd you end up in Clockworks?"

"Because I was arrested thirteen times," Lenny defends. "I didn't walk into Clockworks to get better. I was street trash and they put me in the dump."

"Okay," Divad says, conciliatory. "How about when we broke you out of Division 3? You went right back to all that, right? Did it make you happy?"

Lenny pauses. "The morning after was kinda shit."

"Bad hangover?" Dvd asks.

"You could say that," Lenny says. "I just— Didn't feel like I belonged there anymore. It felt— Small."

"Ptonomy said that's why refuges hurt us," Divad says. "We grow out of them, but we keep trying to force ourselves back in. You relied on those things because they were all you had. Now you've got other stuff."

"You've got us," Dvd declares. "And whatever we've got we're gonna share with you. Like our Twizzlers."

Lenny softens at that.

"It's about figuring out a better way to be," Divad tries. "So you can be happy instead of just— Not miserable."

"That's a new one," Lenny says. "How about 'learn how to be actually happy'?" She writes that down. 

"Be open and vulnerable," Dvd reads. "Everybody needs that one."

Lenny writes it down. "Next?"

"Syd needed to find her motivation," Divad says. "What's your motivation?"

"All I ever wanted to do was escape," Lenny says. "But I doubt that's gonna fly as a therapy goal."

"Maybe that's your refuge, not pleasure," Dvd suggests. 

Lenny considers that. "You might be right. Okay. I mean, actually being happy sounds pretty good. I could add 'stop trying to escape—'" She immediately blanches. "Okay, escape is definitely my refuge. It's gonna suck to leave it." She writes it anyway.

"It's really hard to stop hurting our system," Divad says, understanding. "But not hurting it is better. Staying will be better for you, too."

"That's not your motivation, though," Dvd points out. 

"I got plenty of motivation,” Lenny says. “I’m not letting that asshole hurt me or you guys ever again.”

“And when he’s dead?” Divad asks. “Are you just gonna throw all this away and drown yourself in drugs until it kills you?”

“Hey, don’t take your anger about Benny out on me,” Lenny says. “I heard what you were thinking. You wanna forgive me for something? Try that.”

“I’m sorry,” Divad says, backing down. “You’re right. I am angry about the drugs. I just— Don’t want to be angry at David about it.”

“Maybe you should talk to Ptonomy about that tomorrow,” Lenny says. “Get some anger management tips or something.”

Divad considers that, then pulls out his own notebook and adds that to his therapy list. “I will,” he says. “But you still need to think past Farouk. David does too. And Dvd.”

“I’m fine now,” Dvd insists. 

“You asked me to erase you and fuse with you,” Divad reminds him. “That’s not fine.”

“We’re getting David back,” Dvd insists, but that only reminds him of how much they’ve lost. He struggles to stay calm. He doesn’t want to start wobbling again. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Don’t get smug.”

Divad holds up his hands in surrender. 

“Fine,” Lenny says. “‘Think about my future.’ Done. Next?”

Dvd can’t touch his notebook, so he tells Divad to add ‘think about my future’ to his own therapy list. Then he reads, "Learn to recognize what I'm feeling and to manage my reactions."

Lenny hesitates, then writes it down. 

"Believe I am worth saving," Dvd reads.

"Fuck, these aren't small," Lenny says, but writes it anyway.

"Make my foundation and mantra my own," Dvd reads.

"That's an important one," Divad adds, as Lenny writes. "You have to make it yours for it to really help you. And you have to keep doing your foundation work. Otherwise it won't be there when you need it."

"Got it," Lenny says.

"The last two," Dvd says. "Accept my wounds, learn to care for them, and let others care for them. Learn acceptance and compassion for myself and others."

Lenny writes them, then leans back and looks over the list. "Syd wasn't messing around when she made this."

"You know Syd," Divad says, meaningfully.

Lenny sighs. "Guess I've got something to keep me busy while you guys catch your zees. Speaking of which, it's definitely your bedtime. Go snuggle up with David."

Dvd looks over at David. Finally. He's been waiting for this. 

Divad keeps Dvd company while he takes care of their body's evening routine, and then they go to their bed where Amy and Ptonomy are waiting. Amy puts the sleep inducer on their head, and then Dvd lies down over David and—

It's like letting out a breath he's held all day long. He feels David with him all through their body, like a hug from head to toe. For a blissful moment, he can almost pretend David is awake with him, that everything is okay and they'll never be apart again. And then Divad joins them, and even though that feels even better— It pulls Dvd back to reality.

"We're ready," Dvd says. And then Ptonomy turns on the inducer, and sleepiness sweeps through their body and pulls them down.


	110. Interlude III: Del be del râh dâreh.

The hospital garden is lovely and full of flowers. Amahl and Melanie take David out of the building every day, usually in the late morning so they can have an early lunch together in the sun. David tries his best to enjoy it, but it's difficult. Everything is difficult, especially the things that should be easy. 

He still wakes up early every day, screaming from nightmares. Now his screams wake up both Amahl and Melanie, but Melanie seems to have the same endless patience as Amahl. Amahl soothes David, makes them his coffee, and then the day begins. 

They help him take care of their body. His body. _Their_ body. David can't give up hoping that one day Divad and Dvd will come back to him. He can't accept that they were just the monster's masks, he can't accept it even though there's no other explanation for why they're gone. Why everything's gone. 

Their powers won't come back either. Because they're not their powers, apparently. He doesn't have any mutant powers because he's not a mutant. He's just a human, a normal human with only one mind in his head. Just like Amahl.

Amahl still wants him to be his key. David doesn't understand that, he doesn't see how what's left of him could be of any use to anyone. His powers were all he could offer his system, in the end. And now he doesn't have powers and he doesn't have a system. David isn't sure if getting rid of the monster was worth losing so much. But when he told Amahl that one morning, Amahl just shook his head.

"Don't be silly, my dear," Amahl said, hugging him and and stroking their hair, their back. "You only suffer the pain of healing. Trust Amahl, let me heal you, and the pain will stop."

David held him back, grateful, and wanted so much for those words to be true.

Amahl is certainly doing everything he can to make them true. The one thing that makes David feel less alone in their body is touch, so Amahl is generous with touch. He doesn't just hold David after his nightmares now, but touches him in smaller ways all through the day, encourages David to reach for him whenever he needs him. Sometimes it feels like Amahl's touch is the only thing keeping him alive. 

It's strange, being so close to someone who isn't inside him. There was their parents and Amy, of course, but all of that feels so far away and tangled up in everything he's struggling with. 

His past isn't real. It couldn't have been, not when every waking moment was a delusion. If Divad and Dvd and their powers were all just the monster's tricks, then— Then what's left of David's past? And if he has no real past— Then who is he now? 

Sometimes it's all too much for him. All the time, if he's honest. It's been weeks since Melanie arrived, an eternity and the blink of an eye, and David is still bleakly numb. Their hand is healing well, like their arms. He eats what he's given and does what he's told. Amahl tells him he's getting stronger and healthier every day, that their brain and body are healing. Accounting for the delusions that the monster made David experience, the surgery appears to have been a complete success.

It still takes everything David has not to hurt himself again, not to try to make the pain stop on his own. But he's failed twice and he doubts he'll get another chance. Amahl is rarely apart from David at all, and Melanie doesn't need to be close to freeze him in place with a thought. He knows it's for his own good, and yet— Sometimes David feels more like their prisoner than their patient.

But he doesn't want to die. He wants the pain to stop but— He wants Amahl to be right, he wants them to be able to save him. But even with Amahl comforting him, even with Melanie's telepathic therapy sessions every afternoon after their nap, David doesn't feel like he's drowning. He feels like he's been down at the bottom of the ocean for so long he's just one more seaweed-covered, rusted wreck. 

So it's not too much of a surprise when Melanie turns to him that morning and says, with quiet concern, "I think it's time we discussed medication."

"No," David says, immediately and urgently. He looks to her, pleading. "Please, no."

Melanie takes their hand. "David, what the monster did to you— It took something that can truly help you and made it a terrible torture. We completely understand why you're afraid. But your neurochemical profile won't improve without help."

"She's right," Amahl says. His arm is around their back and he and rubs his hand along their side. "You know I would never give you anything that would hurt you."

"I know," David says, but he can barely bring himself to accept the most harmless painkillers. The medications they were forced to take hurt them, messed them up and gave them awful side effects. It was torture. 

"That's because your body didn't need those medications," Melanie says. She's been relaying David's thoughts to Amahl since her arrival, and having her and Amahl replying to his thoughts feels achingly familiar. 

"I know every inch of you," Amahl assures him. "I know exactly what your mind needs to heal. I will make a special formula just for you. Medication _à la David_. Cherry flavored?"

"Not everything has to be cherries," David grouches, even though he definitely wants it to be cherry flavored. 

Amahl laughs, and the vibration goes into their body where it's pressed against Amahl's. "I think you're feeling better already." He gives them another rub, and then brings his other hand to rest over their heart. "You are safe with Amahl."

David hesitates, then brings their hand up over Amahl's, as he's been taught. "I'm safe with Amahl," he echoes, and focuses on the warm, solid weight of Amahl's hand. 

"Wonderful," Amahl praises, as he does. "I'll get started as soon as we return to the lab. But you'll need to sit with Melanie while I work. Is that all right?"

David gives Melanie a wary look. He feels bad about his confused feelings towards her. He was so excited to finally meet another mutant— Only to be told he wasn't a mutant at all, and the monster that tortured him _was_. And she's so effortlessly powerful. He appreciates that she's here to help him, but— 

Melanie gives him a sad smile. "I know, David. It's okay, I understand."

"Melanie is not just any mutant, David," Amahl gently chides. "She is my wife, the love of my life. I would never have asked her to help us if I did not completely trust her. She is a Farouk, like me, remember? She is part of me, and I am part of her. We are one, like all married couples should be."

David looks at Melanie's ring, a match with the one he feels under their palm. Melanie sees him looking at it and holds out her hand. David cautiously takes it, and feels the warm metal against both their hands. 

He's safe with Amahl. So he's also safe with Melanie, because— They're one. So she's Amahl, too.

"Okay," he agrees.

§

Melanie doesn't touch David the way Amahl does. David's not sure if he wants her to or not. She holds their hand when Amahl has to step away to operate a scan or to work on something, like this new medication, but she keeps a polite distance between them. Maybe because she's his therapist. Amahl is the only doctor David's ever had who gave him touch to comfort him, and even though it's strange, it's what David needs. Without Divad and Dvd, he's starving for touch. Him not having touch is like— A fish not having water. He just can't survive without it.

And yet— Even if part of Melanie is Amahl— He's reluctant to do more than hold hands. He feels like he shouldn't, somehow.

They sit together and watch as Amahl carefully measures and mixes. It's soothing, watching him work, even though their stomach twists anxiously when David thinks about what he's making. The medication always made it hard to think, and it's already so hard to think. He barely exists at all as it is. What if the medication takes what's left of him away? What if it doesn't? What if Amahl is wrong and David can't be saved?

"Of course you can be saved, David," Melanie soothes, giving their hand a squeeze. "Everyone is worth saving."

"Everyone?" David asks, uncertain.

"That's what Amahl and I both believe," Melanie says. "Sometimes the people who need the most saving are those who think they deserve it the least. The world throws so many people away, David. That's why we have to save them."

"That's what you need me for," David says, half-asking.

"Amahl believes you're the key to a better future for everyone," Melanie says. "But even if you were just a perfectly ordinary patient, you'd still deserve to be healthy and happy." She smiles. "You truly are a perfectly ordinary patient, you know."

"I know," David says, and tries not to be disappointed by that. As miserable as his old life was, being normal now— He feels like he's lost so much. He doesn't know what will ever fill all that empty space inside him.

Amahl steps away from his lab and comes over, carrying a tray with two syringes. "No cherry flavor, I'm afraid."

"More needles?" David asks, unhappily. He's already Amahl's personal pincushion with all the tests they have to do every day. Their weekly spinal tap is tomorrow and David's already dreading it.

Amahl pulls a chair over and sits with them. "You'll start on a very low dose, so I can make sure your body accepts the medication correctly. Two shots a day. We'll do the other before bed."

David reaches for their sleeve, but hesitates. It's one thing for Amahl to take things out of them. But to put things into them?

"Do you think I would poison you, my dear?" Amahl asks, with mild offense.

"Of course not," David protests. "I just—" He eyes the syringes nervously. 

"You don't want to feel worse," Amahl says, understanding. "It is that terrible emptiness we wish to salve. With time we will cure it completely, I promise you. But first you must be strong enough for the cure. Let me share my strength with you."

"Is that what's in there?" David asks, a nervous half-joke.

But Amahl takes it seriously. "Every treatment I give you, this is me sharing myself with you. And one day you will be strong enough to share yourself with me. That will make us both strong." He picks up the first syringe. "I want you to think of that every time we do this. I want you to feel me inside you and know that I am healing you."

David stares, swallows. Amahl can still be very— Intense, sometimes. Weirdly poetic. But the sentiment is reassuring anyway. David would rather think of Amahl than the actual drugs anyway.

"Very good," Amahl praises warmly. "Now give me your arm."

David rolls up their sleeve. Amahl opens a small packet and sterilizes a spot on their arm. "Just a pinch," Amahl says, and David squeezes Melanie's hand tightly as he feels the needle go in. The injection is slow and careful, a lot of liquid for a supposedly small dose, and David feels it all go in. Amahl withdraws the needle and cleans the tiny wound, then puts a band-aid over it. 

"There," he says, resting his hand over the bandage. "All better." He rubs lightly at their arm, encouraging the medication to circulate. Then he tugs down their sleeve, smooths it.

David lets out a shaky breath. "How long?" he asks.

"It will take time for you to feel the change," Amahl says. "It will be very gradual. But you will start to feel less empty, less sad."

"Okay," David says, and puts their hand over their arm. Think of Amahl, not the drugs. It's just Amahl. Amahl won't hurt him. Amahl will make the pain stop.

Amahl touches his hand to their face, cups their cheek. "Such good, healthy thoughts. Nutritious thoughts. We will heal you together, hmm?"

David nods against Amahl's palm.

§

They all lie down for their usual afternoon nap, to make up for the lost sleep David caused. But David can't sleep. He tries to mirror Amahl and Melanie, to be quiet and still, but—

He doesn't like remembering. There wasn't much good about their life to remember before their surgery, and there's even less now. But as he lies in the dark, remembering is all he can do. He tries to make it stop, tries to think about anything else, but nothing stops the memories from coming at him, one after the other.

The drugs used to make them feel this way, sometimes. The antipsychotics. They made it hard to stay still, they made them restless and they were compelled to fidget and pace. Different drugs did different things to them, and the doctors were always trying different drugs, different combinations, trying to cure a disease they didn't have. Sometimes they felt so sleepy all the time. Sometimes they felt an unbearable anxiety on top of their already unbearable anxiety. And sometimes they felt blank and numb and empty, like nothing could ever matter again. 

David remembers how their hands would shake. There was a teacher who got angry with them for their handwriting, called it sloppy and unreadable. They explained that they were on medication, but the teacher just— He said David needed to try harder. That was always everyone's answer to their problems. If he just _tried harder_ — As if they weren't already putting everything they had into getting through that day, that hour, that _minute_. It was bad enough that David was sick, everyone thought. He was lazy, too, and that was unforgivable. 

_A failure. A burden on society. So tragic, he should never have been born._

David wipes at their eyes, trying hard to stay quiet. 

Whatever Amahl gave him— It’s not an antipsychotic. Because they're not psychotic, they don't have schizophrenia. It took their whole life for them to find a doctor who finally accepted that and gave them the right help. They've finally been saved from the monster.

 _He's_ been saved. Divad and Dvd aren't here to know they've been saved, too. They're missing all of this. How could they miss it? He wonders how they would have reacted. Would they like Amahl, too? Divad probably would have. He wanted them to be a doctor one day. He wanted to help people once they found a way to stop the monster. 

David's not sure if Dvd would have liked Amahl. Dvd didn't like anyone much. He'd probably tell David to be more careful, more suspicious. He'd say all of this was still a trick no matter how real it felt, no matter how persistently the sun rose and fell every single day. He'd say they didn't need help from anyone.

But they always needed help. They couldn't get it, but they still needed it. And now that David finally has help, it doesn't make any sense to resist it. Whatever needs to be done for them to heal— For _him_ to heal— Then David should be grateful for it.

But he can't sleep. He can't stay still. He can't stop feeling like— Something's wrong. What if something's wrong? Amahl said— He said it was a low dose to make sure it didn't hurt them. But that means there's a chance it might hurt them. What if— Amahl's medication is why he's restless? What if it makes their hands shake? What if it makes them anxious? Their hands are trembling now. David already felt anxious, but— Now he's _more_ anxious. What if he can't be helped? What if the only way to help him just makes everything worse?

He'll never sleep now. What if Amahl has to use drugs to make him sleep? What will that do to him? He told them he was too broken to save, he _told them_ but they didn't listen. If he could just— Go away—

"Shh, shh." A hand touches their arm, and David flinches away from it, panicked.

"It's just Amahl," Amahl soothes, and touches them again. "You're safe with Amahl, remember?"

Their heart is racing, beating painfully fast. Amahl must have heard all of that, all of David's awful thoughts. He must be angry.

"Of course I'm not angry," Amahl soothes. "Come, sit up. Look at me."

David uncurls from the tense ball he'd pulled himself into, and drags himself upright. Their heart is still going too fast, and their hands are trembling, and he's so afraid— It has to be the drug, it _has_ to be.

Amahl sits beside him, rests a hand on their arm, solid and steadying. "It’s not the medication, my dear. I promise. It will take days before the dose is even strong enough to start to help. You must trust that I would never do anything to hurt you."

"I know," David says. He knows that. But he's still afraid.

"This fear is not rational," Amahl says. "It's the monster's fear. You must give it back to the monster so you may be free of it."

"Give back my fear?" David asks, uncertain.

Amahl nods. "Like your schizophrenia. It was never yours. It belonged to the mutant who lived inside you. Surrender your fear, return it to its source."

David just looks at him in confusion.

"I know," Amahl says, fondly. "But you will learn. Melanie and I will teach you. Once the medication strengthens you, you will be ready to begin to release your delusions. The confusion, the division— They will be gone once you are whole."

All of that still feels beyond David. Even though it's been weeks since he woke up from his coma, and months since the monster was removed— It's hard to even imagine what it would actually be like to heal, much less— Whatever whole means. He's lost so much of himself. Wholeness seems utterly impossible.

"You have lost a great deal," Amahl admits. "But you are here and you are not alone. You must open yourself so that those empty spaces may be filled. Your old life is gone, my dear. But you are young. There is time to make a new one. You must— Prepare to be reborn."

"Reborn?" David echoes. 

"Like a newborn baby," Amahl says, smiling. He reaches up to touch their cheek. "Did I ever tell you about my son?"

"No," David says, surprised. He thought Amahl and Melanie never had children.

"We did not," Amahl admits. "This was before I met Melanie, many years ago. I lost him to— A terrible accident."

"I'm sorry," David says, genuinely. He had no idea. 

"You are very much like him," Amahl says, softly. "Or what I thought he would become. I could not accept the loss of him for many years. But now— I think perhaps I am ready. I am not so young," he admits. "But I too wish to be reborn. To be whole."

"You're not broken," David protests. 

"You cannot see my broken heart," Amahl sighs. He drops his hand and takes David's, brings it to rest over his own heart. "You cannot know the pain of losing a child. A dear, precious son. It is a monstrous agony, blackening the heart. I refused to grieve and so my anger consumed me. I had no anchor. I lost myself." 

He pauses. David feels caught in Amahl's gaze, unable to look away. 

"But recently, I had time to— Find myself again," Amahl continues. "To put myself back together. It is a strange thing, to heal. Painful, frightening. But at the other side we find a beautiful sunrise. We find life from death, the poetry of gods. At the other side, we will both be whole."

It makes David feel a little bit less alone, to hear all that. To know— Amahl needs healing, too. "So, uh, I remind you of him?"

"Very much," Amahl says, meaningfully. "I had a name for him, my son. _Joonam_. It means— My dear, my life, my soul. That is what he was to me."

It gives David a strange feeling to hear that. He's not Amahl's son, and the idea of replacing a dead child— It's hardly comforting. And yet— It explains Amahl's easy affection with him. "That's why you call me 'my dear'?"

"It is," Amahl admits, bashful. "I will stop if it makes you uncomfortable."

"No," David protests, hurriedly. "No, it's— It's nice, I—" He swallows. "I lost my mom, years ago, and— I haven't talked to my dad in years." He glances away, then back to Amahl's eyes. " _Joonam_ ," he tries. 

Amahl's eyes light with happiness. " _Joonam_ ," he says, and pulls David into a hug. " _Del be del râh dâreh_."

"What's that mean?" David asks.

"That we share a path," Amahl says. "Our hearts are connected."

"I guess they are," David says. He thinks about the food Amahl shares with him, the little stories he tells about them. How important they must be to him. "I, uh, don't know much about, um. Where are you from?"

"Many places," Amahl says, releasing him. "Egypt, Morocco, France, Germany. But my family is from Iran. It is an ancient country, rich with beauty and poetry."

"I never traveled, really," David admits. "I was sick, so—" He doesn't bother explaining the rest. "You traveled a lot?"

Amahl gets a pleased look. "Would you like me to tell?"

"Please," David says. He needs the distraction to keep him from worrying about the medication. And he wants to get to know Amahl better. He's not just David's doctor anymore, he's more than that. David hasn't ever had friends. He had his system and his family, but it was too dangerous to have anyone else. But the monster is gone now. Maybe— Amahl could be— His friend? His first-ever friend. It feels strange to even think it. 

"I would be honored, _joonam_ ," Amahl says, warmly.


	111. Interlude III: Love can also be a kind of torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Farouk being the worst.

David lets Amahl give him his medication shots twice every day, in the morning and before bed. After each shot, to keep David from getting upset, Amahl sits with him and tells him a story about his adventures around the world. A small story each time, about something he saw or did or ate, about moments of excitement or joy or sadness. 

It's soothing, like the stories Dad used to tell them when they were little. David barely remembers anything about those stories after so long, but he remembers the feeling. They were afraid to sleep because of the nightmares, because of the monster, but Dad reading to them soothed them, helped them feel safe enough to close their eyes. It didn't stop the nightmares, of course. Nothing stops the nightmares, not even now. But for his shot before bed, when Amahl tells him another story— It helps David feel safe enough to close their eyes.

As Amahl promised, as the days pass David does start to feel less empty, less sad. It gets a little easier to see past his pain, to engage with the world. The need to make everything stop gets— Less urgent. David can see the relief in Amahl and Melanie, and honestly he's relieved himself. He thinks of Amahl's strength going into him with each shot, filling up the empty spaces, filling in the cracks so the brittle pieces of him are held and protected. And the stories feel like a kind of medication too, letting David see the world through Amahl's eyes, giving him a taste of everything he never had a chance to experience himself. 

And through the stories, he gets to know Amahl. This doctor, this man who did so many amazing things, who traveled and learned languages and learned to heal. Who lost his son and then his wife, and then met Melanie when they were both volunteering for rescue efforts in China. David feels closer to him with every story, and more grateful for how much Amahl has saved him. 

Amahl has a dream to make the world better. David wants to be part of that dream, he wants to be Amahl's key. He just has to get strong enough to be that. Amahl takes care of their body, but David's mind needs to be strong too, and for that he needs Melanie.

His sessions with Melanie started very slow. In order for Melanie to help him, she needs to know everything he remembers about his old life. It's painful to even think about all of that, much less talk about it, so at first David barely spoke at all and simply let Melanie read what few thoughts he dared to think. But as Amahl's medication has strengthened him, he's been able to remember more, even to talk a little about what happened. 

It's still— Remembering is agony. But at the end of each session, Amahl is waiting for him with open arms. David rests in his embrace and lets Amahl soothe him, stroke his hair, call him _joonam_ and tell him how well he's doing, how strong he's becoming, how good it is that he's letting them help him. 

Amahl is so fatherly towards him, it makes David think a lot about his real father. His real family. After Mom died— Everything about home was painful. He pulled away from Dad and Amy, and then— Divad had to take over for him because he was a mess, he was out of control, he was ruining their life. Dad and Amy loved Divad so much more than they loved David. They were so much happier with him in charge. So even though Dvd always wanted to know when David would be back in charge— David accepted that Divad knew what was best for them. 

It wasn't so bad. He still had Dvd. But it was almost like— Losing Mom made him an orphan. 

"When you're strong enough, I think it would be good for you to see them again," Melanie says, when he thinks about his family during their daily session. "Give them a chance to patch things up."

David shakes their head firmly. He doesn't feel remotely ready yet. He's not even sure he wants to be ready. He's only just starting to feel able to tolerate his own existence. If he sees them again and— All they are is disappointed in him— It would set him back, he knows it.

"They might surprise you," Melanie offers. "They're your family. What happened to you must have been a terrible shock for them. I know you're not ready now, but— Don't deny yourself the chance to be with them again."

"I'll think about it," David says, relenting. But he's not going to make any promises beyond that.

Melanie gives him a pleased smile anyway. "We've come a long way to get to that," she tells him. "Let's keep going. We've spent a lot of time on memory work, but now I think you're ready to start making progress in other areas."

"Like what?" David asks, warily.

"Like with how you think about your body," Melanie says. "Even though you've been alone in your body for months, you still think of it as 'our' body. As your system's body."

"Yeah," David admits. Because it _is_ their body.

"You're still waiting for Divad and Dvd to come back," Melanie says. "You don't want to give up on them."

"I won't," David says, firmly. Everything they went through together, everything they suffered— he refuses to give up on them.

"David," Melanie says, more serious. "You need to accept the truth. DID identities can't be removed. If you were truly a system, they would still be with you now."

"They weren't the monster," David says, angrily. He knows they weren't. Nothing will convince him they were the monster.

Melanie leans back in the loveseat and gives him a considering look. "We've talked a lot about the way Divad and Dvd treated you. You understand that what they did to you was abusive?"

"Yes," David sighs, annoyed. 

Melanie isn't convinced. "You understand it, but you don't accept it."

"All that stuff is just how we work," David defends. 

"Worked," Melanie corrects. "Even if you refuse to accept what they were— They're gone, David. They're not here. You are the only one in your body. You're not sharing it with anyone, not Divad and Dvd, not the monster."

Tears well in their eyes when she says that. David wipes at them angrily. "They'll come back," he insists, like he's insisted over and over for months. Divad and Dvd would never leave him. They're a system. They protect each other, no matter what it costs. 

"If they'd never leave you, why aren't they here?" Melanie asks. 

"I don't know," David admits. "Something happened to them. Maybe it was the surgery."

"We've been over this, David," Melanie says, patiently. "There was brain damage from the monster, but Amahl was very careful to get the monster out without hurting you."

"Well maybe he's wrong," David says, stubbornly. 

"We can look at the scans again," Melanie offers, reasonably. "Would you like to see your scan from this morning?"

"No," David says. He doesn't care how many times they show him their brain, it won't change how he feels. He rubs at their eyes again and tries not to feel how alone he is in their body, how empty and incomplete he feels without Divad and Dvd. They have to come back, they _have_ to.

"Okay," Melanie says, accepting. "Do you feel up to doing some more memory work today?"

"No," David says. He looks away from her and wraps their arms around himself. He doesn't want to do anything else today. This was awful and now he feels awful and he just wants to be alone.

Melanie gets up, and David watches her go speak telepathically with Amahl. He can't hear what they say about him, but when they finish, Amahl comes over and sits with him on the sofa, like he always does. Amahl opens his arms and David goes to him, buries their face against Amahl's shoulder. 

It hurts so much, he thinks, knowing Amahl will hear. Why does it have to hurt so much?

"I know, _joonam_ ," Amahl soothes, rubbing their back. He presses a kiss to their head. 

David cries a little. It feels safe to cry with Amahl. He's safe with Amahl.

"You are, my sweet boy," Amahl soothes. "So safe with Amahl. Shh." He strokes their hair, kisses their head again. 

David clings to him, but as close as they are— It's not enough. Having him on the outside isn't enough, but— There's no way for Amahl to be a part of him the way Divad and Dvd were. _Are_. No one on the outside can ever become a part of their system, and Amahl is an outside person. David has to force himself to remember that, these days. He doesn’t want to remember that.

Amahl's grip on him tightens, as if he wants them to be together, too. He doesn't, he's not like David, he's never shared his body with anyone so he can't miss it. But it feels like he wants it anyway, yearns for it like David does. 

"The pain will go away," Amahl says, soft in David's ear. "I will make you whole, I promise. But first you must let the monster go."

David tenses in Amahl's embrace. "They're not—"

"Shh, I know," Amahl soothes. "You loved your monster. You trusted it with yourself, with your heart. You surrendered everything to it. You do not want to accept that it hurt you."

David pulls back, but Amahl keeps a loose hold on him. "The monster tortured me. I _know_ that."

"Love can also be a kind of torture," Amahl says, softly. "An inescapable prison. Even physical separation cannot break us free. All these years without my son, and still I love him."

The reminder startles David out of his self-pity. "I'm sorry," he says, though it feels inadequate.

"Your love for these masks is your prison," Amahl tells him. "Once we give our love, even the deepest betrayal cannot free us, no matter how we’re wounded."

David looks away, swallows. "Then what am I supposed to do?" he asks, desperately needing an answer.

"These are not questions for doctors, therapists," Amahl says. "They are for poets. Poetry is the medicine of the soul. When I was young I was dismissive of such things, but— We do not judge our gods on their math, but their poetry. It is not about the thing done. It is the beauty of the journey, the grand sunrise. And does not every day bring a new sunrise?"

The morning has never been David's favorite part of the day. Waking up has always meant having to face another long day, and even though the monster is gone, the days still feel very long. 

"So what do the poets say?" David asks.

"Many things," Amahl says, amused. "Hafez said that reason is like a raindrop on the ocean that is love. It makes a little mark and then disappears."

"Hafez?"

"A great poet of Iran," Amahl explains. "If love cannot be escaped, it must be— Embraced. Transformed. We must make it into what we need it to be."

David frowns, confused as ever by Amahl's poetic tendencies. "Okay, but— What does that actually mean?"

Amahl chuckles. "'Last night I dreamed of one I loved for seven long years, but I saw no face. Only the familiar presence of the body.' That one comes from your Ginsberg."

David scowls at him, and crosses his arms. "That's not helpful either."

"Then Hafez again," Amahl says. "'Open my grave when I am dead, and you will see a cloud of smoke rising out from it. Then shall you know that the fire still burns in my dead heart.'"

"Cheerful," David mutters.

"You are too easy to tease, _joonam_ ," Amahl says, pleased with himself. "Your view of the world— It is a child's view. Through no fault of your own, of course. How can you be anything but a child when you have not been allowed to live? To grow?"

"The monster did that to me," David says, angrily. "And you're telling me what, I'm supposed to accept that I loved it?"

"It is a fact that you did," Amahl says, simply. "It is your denial that hurts you, that makes you war with yourself. What you must do is accept. Accept that you loved the monster, and that it is the monster's absence that you yearn to mend."

"You think I want that thing back?" David asks, disturbed.

"Again, these are facts," Amahl says. "You knew no other life but the one you shared with it. The monster was your world. No part of you was untouched. But it is also a fact that your suffering was terrible, unbearable. Your mind cannot reconcile that suffering with the yearning you feel now. The result is a delusion: that these masks, Divad and Dvd, were not masks; that they were parts of you that can be restored."

"No," David insists. "It's impossible."

"And King?" Amahl prompts. "Was your love for King impossible?"

David feels that like a physical blow. "I didn't know what he was."

"And when you were told?" Amahl asks. "What did you do then?"

David looks away, ashamed.

"Come on," Amahl coaxes. "What did you do?"

"I didn't believe it," David mumbles. It seemed absolutely impossible for King to be the monster. King was— David loved him so much. The loss of him never stopped hurting, not even after all these years. 

"Exactly," Amahl says. "It's the same. The loss of King and Divad and Dvd will never stop hurting. But until you accept the truth, you cannot heal."

"What does healing even mean if it's always going to hurt?" David asks.

"A question for the ages," Amahl says. "One with many answers. But here is one: if I had not begun to heal from the loss of my son, I would not have been able to open my heart to you."

The weight of the answer gives David pause. He meets Amahl's eyes but doesn't know what to say. 

"Say you will try to do the same," Amahl says. "Fight this delusion, this sickness. Accept the truths I have shown you. Your heart wants to heal, _joonam_. Do not try to stop it."

Amahl rests his hand over their heart, and reflexively David puts their hand over his. He looks away again, upset that Amahl wants him to give up on Divad and Dvd— And upset because— 

What if they are like King? What if they are? David had that dog for years and never doubted it, loved it unconditionally until it turned on them. But that only happened after— After Dvd and Divad appeared. If the monster— If it gave up that mask because it had something better—

No. _No_ , it’s impossible. They’re a system, the monster couldn’t trick him into thinking it was part of his system.

Except— If the monster _was_ his system— Like it was his powers—

But if that’s true—

“Shh, shh,” Amahl hushes, stopping his thoughts. “We have taken the first step. We must walk very carefully together or you will hurt yourself. There is no need to rush.”

“But—“

“No more today,” Amahl orders, gently. “You are safe with Amahl. Always remember that.”

“I do,” David promises, focusing on Amahl’s warm palm against their chest. His chest? Their chest?

He doesn’t know anymore. 

He lets Amahl pull him close again, and holds on to him. The whole thing has left David more than a little unsettled. It feels like— Standing at the edge of a cliff with their eyes closed. He doesn't want to open them and look down and see how far he’ll fall with one step forward—

“Do not think about it anymore today,” Amahl urges. “Ah! But it’s time for your massage." He draws David back and gives him a warm smile. "Go get ready and lie down for me."

David nods. He goes over to the privacy screen by his bed and undresses. There's a towel there for him and he wraps it around their waist, but— He still hesitates before he walks out from the screen.

"Still so shy, _joonam_ ," Amahl teases, which only makes David flush. 

Amahl pats the bed, and David obediently lies down on their front. Amahl lifts away the towel, then drapes it back in place. Even though they do this every day, at the start David is always tense. Maybe because it's so similar to how they are for the tests they do in the morning, when David lies down under Amahl's care wearing only a thin hospital gown. At least there are no straps for this.

"There is nothing to fear," Amahl soothes. "Your body carries much pain, but I will take the pain away. Let me?"

Amahl still asks for David's permission, even though it feels like there's no boundaries between them. "Please," David says. Moments like this always make their stomach flutter. 

"My beautiful boy," Amahl soothes, and strokes their back along their spine. "Of course I will."

Amahl oils his hands and gets to work on their body, wringing the stress from every inch of it. The force of it is punishing, almost brutal, pushing the air from their chest. But after the pain comes a euphoric glow, a warm contentment that fills David from head to toe. Amahl touches him entirely and David is putty in his hands. 

"Time to turn over, _joonam_ ," Amahl murmurs. He lifts the towel, and David musters the strength to turn onto their back. He flushes as their erection is exposed, but Amahl just lays the towel back down over it.

The first time it happened, David was painfully embarrassed and almost worked himself into a panic attack when Amahl told him to turn over. But Amahl explained to him that it was a perfectly natural reaction for their body to have. _This is your body healing_ , Amahl told him. _Lie still. Let it happen._

So David lets it happen. Amahl keeps massaging him, and when it's done David feels too boneless to move. And it's not like he could hurry off to the bathroom to take care of things in private. Every thought he has is relayed to Amahl by Melanie, who sits in a meditative pose on a loveseat between meals and therapy, and when she isn't needed to help Amahl with something. Sometimes David even forgets she's there. With her eyes closed, it's almost like she's sleeping.

All of that means David has to simply wait for his arousal to fade. It does eventually, but— It reminds him of how much he misses Dvd. Dvd always liked making them feel good together. He thinks of Dvd now, longingly, but— With a twinge of uncertain fear. If Dvd was really just the monster—

"Shh, shh," Amahl hushes, petting their hair. "Don't upset yourself."

"I'm trying," David sighs. Being told not to think about it only seems to make it harder to not think about it. 

"Get dressed," Amahl says. "We'll have dinner."

Amahl helps him sit up, and David grips the towel as he returns to the privacy screen. He dresses and tries to stay focused on other things. He can't think about his session with Melanie, so he thinks about Amahl. The good feelings Amahl gives their body, the way Amahl comforts him, takes care of him, makes everything feel—

Like having a system again. It's not the same, it can't be, but— There was such an enormous, gaping wound in him when he woke up from the coma. He couldn't even begin to imagine surviving without Divad and Dvd. He still wants them back, he misses them so much— 

But Amahl helps. If it wasn't for Amahl, David wouldn't have survived. Amahl is always there for him, soothing him, taking care of their body, helping him think and feel. David is so grateful to him. It feels even more important to become strong enough to be Amahl's key, because that will mean they can stay together. Amahl is a doctor, and that means one day he'll have other patients. So David has to be what Amahl needs. That’s exactly how things were with his system. They would always do anything for each other.

Amahl steps out briefly to accept their dinner from their assistant. David still hasn't seen them. Even though he's getting better now, Amahl has said it's still very important to limit David's social contact. He's seen no one but Amahl and Melanie for months. Even the garden they go to is closed off to visitors during their lunch, and they have their own private elevator. Amahl's work must be very important for the hospital to agree to all of this. David still understands very little about how Amahl intends to use him to cure madness, but David trusts him. Whatever Amahl wants, David wants to give him.

Amahl's mom makes dishes to go along with Amahl's stories about travel, from different cuisines and countries. Today is Parisian, matching Amahl's story that morning about visiting the Eiffel Tower and what it was like to look down on all of Paris from high above. 

" _Le Hachis Parmentier_ ," Amahl explains, portioning out their servings of the meat pie casserole, covered in mashed potatoes and a sauce. "Named after the inventor of the potato."

"Potatoes were invented?" David asks, skeptical.

Amahl chuckles. "The French believed them too dangerous to eat. Fit only for the pigs. Parmentier had to trick people into wanting to eat them. He did this by putting armed guards around them so they were thought to be valuable. Then he had the guards withdraw for the night or accept bribes. The potatoes were stolen, which was his goal."

"Wow, that's— Sneaky," David says, impressed. He'd never have thought of something like that.

"It was for a very good cause," Amahl says. "In Paris, there are streets named after him, statues made in his honor. His name is praised when people eat their meals. He's like a god to them, because he gave them what they did not know know they needed. And now they cannot imagine their lives without his gift."

David tries a forkful of the casserole. "It's really good," he says. He imagines armed guards escorting bags of potatoes into the supermarket. He smiles and takes another bite, and thinks about all the things the world wouldn't have without potatoes. No french fries! Parmentier definitely did the right thing.

After dinner, Amahl gives David his second shot of the day. This time it's in their thigh, and Amahl rubs the injection site, encouraging the medication to circulate. David still tenses up from the shot, but he does what Amahl taught him. He imagines the medication is a piece of Amahl going inside him, strengthening him, healing him. The dose is strong now, and David can almost feel it helping him as he rests in Amahl's embrace, listening to him talk about Paris. 

When bedtime comes, David feels his anxiety rising. He's so tired of the nightmares. He asked Amahl for something to make them stop, but Amahl said that there was nothing. After today's session— David is afraid of what his nightmares will be tonight. He doesn't want to face them alone.

"Um, Amahl," he says, before they lie down on their separate beds. "I was wondering, um—" He looks at Amahl's bed, at his own. Amahl probably already knows what he's thinking, so if he's waiting then it's because he wants David to say it aloud. "Could we— Push our beds together?"

Amahl smiles, pleased. "Would it help you sleep?"

David nods. "I don't— Want to be alone," he admits. He'd feel safer with Amahl. He always feels safe with Amahl.

"Then you will not be alone," Amahl promises. 

They push their beds together and snuggle close, sharing a blanket. David is the little spoon, and he sighs in Amahl's arms, feels the warmth of his breath against their neck, feels their bodies together. It's not exactly like sharing a body, but it might be as close as he'll ever get again. 

"Such sweet thoughts," Amahl murmurs in their ear. He rests his hand over their heart. "Now sleep, _joonam_. Sleep knowing you are safe."

David rests their hand over Amahl's and closes their eyes.


	112. Interlude III: Our little secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Farouk still being the worst.

David startles awake up from their afternoon nap, his throat tight and his heart beating too fast. Another nightmare, always another nightmare. 

But he doesn't scream anymore. The nightmares are easier to take now that he always sleeps with Amahl. He lets the terror fall away and focuses on the feeling of Amahl pressed against his back, his arm solidly around him, his leg between David's legs. They've been sleeping this way ever since David asked to bring their beds together, and when David wakes and feels Amahl holding him as close as he can, their bodies tangled together, he calms right away.

It's _his_ body. It took a long time and a lot of patient work with Amahl and Melanie for him to accept it, to accept that Divad and Dvd were just another King, two more masks the monster used to manipulate and abuse him. But accepting it has helped the nightmares, too. He still sees them every time he sleeps, yelling at him and hurting him, telling him to kill himself and— _Using_ him—

But the monster and its masks are gone. All of those horrors are over. David's starting to truly believe that Amahl can take his pain away. This new life is Amahl's gift, and David is grateful for it beyond words. His body may be his alone, but his _life_ is unquestionably Amahl's. Amahl saved him, is still saving him. David owes him everything.

Amahl stirs in his sleep, pulling David closer, holding him tighter, nuzzling against his hair, and David gives a contented sigh. He still fantasizes about Amahl replacing the monster's system, his body becoming _their_ body again. A new "they", just for the two of them. But it's just a fantasy, an impossible dream. The reality is that they're separate people with separate bodies. Amahl is his doctor and his friend and something of a father figure to him, but they can't really be anything more. The better David gets, the more he recognizes that. Eventually David will be strong enough to be Amahl's key, and then after that— Amahl will have to move on, to help other patients. That's what doctors do. David hopes they'll still be friends, close friends, but— One day they'll have to live their own, separate lives again. 

And then? David doesn't know. He doesn't like to think about that. 

For now they're together. And David would be content to lie quietly in Amahl's embrace until Amahl wakes up — Amahl and Melanie can be deep sleepers now that David doesn't scream them awake anymore — but he hears the sound of footsteps in the hall.

No one should be in the hall. No one should be swiping their card on the lab door lock, and _definitely_ no one should be opening the door and _walking in_.

David isn't supposed to speak with anyone except Amahl and Melanie. It's been months since he woke up and, apart from the cars on the roads outside, the people he sees walking down on the sidewalk or past the garden walls, David hasn't even seen anyone but the Farouks. And now—

David squeezes his eyes shut. He can't do anything to hurt Amahl or his work. He shakes Amahl's arm but he doesn't even stir. David hears the intruder typing on Amahl's computer, and worries they're trying to steal Amahl's work. David knows he has to do something. Melanie could stop the intruder without even lifting a finger, but he can't reach her to nudge her awake.

He'll just get whoever it is out quickly. Chasing an intruder out of the lab should barely count as social contact. David might not have mutant powers anymore, but he's not going to let the people he cares about get hurt. He opens his eyes and slips out of Amahl's embrace, then quietly slides to the floor and ducks down. He needs to see what he's dealing with.

It's a woman about David's age, maybe a little older. She's wearing all black and her straight blonde hair is pulled into pigtails. The glow from Amahl's computer monitor illuminates her face, showing pale blue eyes and a focused, serious expression.

She's _beautiful_.

No, stay focused. It doesn't matter what she looks like, she shouldn't be here at all. He looks around for something to use as a weapon, but of course the lab was suicide-proofed ages ago. He'll just have to confront her empty-handed.

He braces himself and then stands up from his crouch and marches over to her. "I don't know who you are, but you don't belong here," David says, as sternly as he can. "Get out or I'll throw you out."

The woman looks at him, then turns back to the computer and continues typing. "You're supposed to be asleep," she says, like all this is _his_ fault. "For another fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty."

"You know how long I sleep?" David asks, astonished. "Who _are_ you?"

She doesn't reply. She finishes whatever she was doing and stands. She's at least six inches shorter than him, but somehow David's the one who ends up with his back against the counter.

"You're going to go back to bed," she tells him, like a command. "You're not going to say anything. This is going to be— Our little secret." She raises a gloved hand, presses two fingers to her lips, and then steps away. She walks calmly to the door, swipes her card, and then she's gone.

David stares, completely bewildered and weirdly turned on. What just happened? Who _is_ she? He has to tell Amahl, of course he does, this is— This risks compromising all of Amahl's work, David can't possibly let that happen. He can't see this mystery woman ever again.

He goes to the door, belatedly, but it's already locked. He hears the elevator open and close, and feels—

He tries the door again, even though he knows it won't open. Even though she's already gone.

He immediately has a thousand questions, none of which she's here to answer. She knows when he sleeps? She has an access card? He goes to look at Amahl's computer but she reset the terminal. He can't even find what she was looking at. 

Of course he has to tell Amahl. He has to wake Amahl and Melanie up right away and tell them so they can make sure that woman can't ever come back. Of course he has to do that.

He thinks about her black-gloved fingers, pressed against her lips. _Our little secret._ Who _is_ she? If he doesn't say anything— Will she ever come back?

He thinks about her wide blue eyes, her lips, her— The curve of her waist— And he suddenly feels so many feelings—

All these months, every day has been almost the same. The details change: the stories Amahl tells, the food they eat, the things he talks about with Melanie. He's gotten better and he and Amahl have grown closer. But there's a sameness to every day, blurring everything together, and until now nothing has broken it. He didn't want to break it. What he was given was more than enough.

Suddenly, it's not enough anymore.

He won't think about it. He can't think about it without Amahl finding out. So he does exactly what she told him to do. He goes back to bed, tucks himself back into Amahl's embrace, and tucks their little secret down deep. He feels a twinge of guilt as Amahl pulls him close again, but he's used to guilt. He can live with a little guilt, for the chance to see this woman again.

§

David doesn't know how he manages to not think about the mystery woman for the rest of the day, but when night comes she breaks into his dreams as easily as she broke into the lab. He wakes up not from his usual nightmares but with an erection that won't go away just by waiting it out. Amahl and Melanie are still asleep, thank god, so he sneaks into the bathroom and takes care of it as quickly and quietly as he can. 

Afterwards, he sits on the toilet lid and tries to grapple with these sudden feelings. He's never felt like this before. It was never safe to want anyone, to be close to anyone. He couldn't even have friends, much less— Sudden infatuations with strange women. The monster would use something like that to manipulate him, to torture him. It would make him so absolutely vulnerable. 

But the monster is gone, the monster and his masks. David hasn't been ready yet to talk to Melanie about— What the Dvd mask did to him. What the _monster_ did to him. She knows the basics, of course, but— 

David's heart hurts even thinking about it at all. He loved Dvd, just like he loved King, but more, deeper. He gave Dvd everything, even though what he had to give was so little. And it was all a trick, just one more awful, gutting trick. 

He lets his tears fall, for once not seeking to escape his pain. Maybe he needs to feel how much it hurts so he doesn't make the same mistake again. Maybe loving anyone is a mistake. It's hard to remember that when Amahl's love is unrelenting, like a tide that never stops coming in. David never really had the choice to refuse Amahl. He doesn't want to, he can't imagine giving him up, but— Now that he's healing, looking back at those early days— 

His head is swirling with thoughts, with feelings he can't begin to untangle. All because of this woman. He feels like— She woke him up. But he's not sure he wanted to be woken up. He was happy in his little bubble with Amahl. It wasn't perfect, of course. All those tests, the nightmares, the therapy sessions— But it was a kind of perfect. 

And now he suddenly wants something else. Something more, something— He's not sure he's supposed to have. He's definitely not allowed to have it, not if the only people he can see are his doctors. He's probably already ruined everything just by talking to her. He should have told Amahl right away, and now—

He doesn't know what to do. It already feels like that one little secret has snowballed into something unmanageable. He wonders if maybe the whole thing was just one of his hallucinations. He hasn't had one of those for a while, the scans show his brain damage is healing well, but— Sometimes reality still feels fuzzy at the edges. Maybe all of this is one big hallucination, or a dream he'll wake up from. He'll be back at college and the monster will be in charge again. He'll be a delusional prisoner, a torture victim no one can save. It's still miraculous to him that he was ever saved.

It's that thought that sobers him, that brings him back to reality. What he wants doesn't matter, it can't matter. Amahl saved him for a reason: so David could be useful to him and to the world. He saved David so David can be his key, not so David can betray him, fail him, ruin his life's work. And for what, for some— Random infatuation? He's never been allowed to love anyone that way. He should know that nothing has changed. Who would ever want him anyway? He's worthless, he knows that. He's always known that. No matter how much Amahl and Melanie heal him, that will never change. 

He looks at the scars on his hand, his arms. They're healed now, and Amahl's treatments made them heal better than David thought possible. But they'll never go away. Unless he wears gloves like that woman, for the rest of his life people will look at him and they'll know. They'll see what he did to himself and they'll know what it means. 

They make him angry, the scars. Angry that they're there, betraying him. Angry that he couldn't finish the job, angry that he tried. He finally has the chance to think on his own for what must be the first time since Melanie came, and all he can do is stare at his scars and feel too many things at once. This is why he's no good on his own. What will he do when Amahl doesn't need him anymore? There won't be any point to him. He'll just be done.

He hasn't wanted to hurt himself in a while. Amahl's been so good at keeping him from hurting himself. David put all that at risk for nothing. He has to tell Amahl the truth and hope it's not too late. If it's too late—

He glances at the mirror, but it's not real glass anymore. It's some kind of safety mirror, plastic and unbreakable. It's not completely impossible for him to hurt himself if he really tries, but— 

He walks out of the bathroom and stares out the window. The city is full of lights, even at this late hour. Sometimes it feels like even though the monster is gone, nothing has changed at all. Amahl has helped him so much, done so much for him, but he's still damaged, still a burden, still unable to function on his own. He's not sure exactly what day it is, but— It'll probably be his twenty-first birthday soon. Divad thought by then, they'd have the monster out.

_Divad. Dvd._

They're not just gone, they were never real. They were everything to him, they were all that mattered, they were the only reason he kept going— And they were a trick. The monster's masks, just like King. He was tricked into loving the monster over and over. He must be so stupid, to fall for it every time. Divad always said he was gullible. 

But Divad was the monster.

Amahl was right. He loved the monster, he trusted it with everything he was, he let it completely into his heart. And it hurt him, it tortured him, it made his life a living hell. He gave it everything and it still _took_. It didn't have to take, so the taking must have been the point. 

They haven't talked about it much, but Melanie said the monster was a mutant. It was an actual person, someone whose mind got separated from their body, so their mind attached itself to his body to stay alive. David can't help but wonder what kind of person would do that, would take over a defenseless baby and torture it mercilessly for twenty years. He lived with the monster his whole life and he still can't imagine it. It's just completely beyond him. Maybe that's because he's a stupid idiot with a lot of brain damage, but—

He touches his chest. He never had a system or a monster, but a whole separate person who lived inside him for all those years. It's a deeply disturbing and incredibly strange thing to think about. Did that person— _enjoy_ living inside him? Is that why they did all of that? Were they unspeakably cruel before it all happened, or did becoming a mental parasite make them that way? David feels a pang of regret that he never had a chance to actually— Talk to them, face to face. To ask them why. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. Maybe confronting them would have only made things worse. But there's such a huge hole in him, still, and he needs to understand the person who made him that way. Who felt the need to— Hollow him out. And he never will.

Somehow that's what he grieves most, tonight, out of all the things he has to grieve.

He doesn't go back to bed. He doesn't deserve Amahl's comfort tonight. He never deserved it to begin with, but Amahl gave it anyway. He sits on the sofa and looks out the window, looks at the lights of the city and the smoggy clouds and wishes he could see the stars.

§

Something’s different. That’s what David thinks as he wakes up. Every day has been the same for so long. But he’s not in bed with Amahl, tangled up in his tight embrace. He fell asleep on the sofa, and now the sun is already up. He rubs his face and sits up, disoriented. 

He didn't wake up from a nightmare. Not from any dream. He just— Woke up. _Strange._

He smells coffee, breakfast, and turns to see Amahl and Melanie at the table. 

"Ah, finally awake," Amahl says. "David. Come join us."

David. Not _joonam_? David wonders if something's wrong, and then he remembers—

He sits down at the table. Just the smell of the café serré is enough to start clearing his head, and he automatically reaches for his own cup. But nothing is set out for him. Of course not, if they let him sleep late—

"David," Melanie says, sounding concerned. "Is there something you'd like to tell us?"

"Something?" David echoes, uncertain. He tries to keep his mind completely blank, but of course that only makes him think about what he's supposed to avoid thinking about. 

"Perhaps you had a bad dream?" Amahl offers. "But if you were upset, surely you would have come to me, let me help you."

David's not sure if what happened yesterday was actually real. Maybe it _was_ just a dream. It's not like he has any proof she was ever here—

"She?" Melanie asks, frowning.

"Um," David starts, but— Did it happen? He thought it was real, but— Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe he's just so used to the same awful nightmares that— He got confused. Reality has always been somewhat— Difficult to hold on to, what with the monster and the brain damage—

"You were gone when I woke up," Amahl says, hurt. "I was very worried. So many terrible things could have happened during the night."

"I'm sorry," David says, regretful. "I just— Needed to think."

"About what, my dear?" Amahl asks. "What could you have possibly needed to think about that you could not share with me?"

David feels his face heat. 

"There's no need to be shy," Amahl says. "There are no boundaries between us, yes? No secrets?"

"No secrets," David agrees, but— He glances away, to the door. 

Amahl frowns. "Perhaps your body is rejecting the medication. There are other formulations I can try. Ones with harsh side effects, but if that's what necessary—"

"Please don't," David says, alarmed. He doesn't want side effects, please no. "It's not the medication. Your medication helps, please don't—" He hasn't had his shot yet this morning, he's overdue. Maybe that's what's wrong with him. Something must be wrong with him to make him— For him to keep things from Amahl. Amahl has to know everything or he can't make the pain stop. David wants the pain to stop, of course he does, he just—

Just what? He's sick. He's delusional. He doesn't deserve to have— He's so stupid and ungrateful—

Usually when his thoughts hurt him, Amahl soothes him. But Amahl just sits there, waiting. 

David should just say it. He knows he should. But he just— He wanted— 

God, what if it's already too late? What if Amahl can't use him anymore? He's so stupid and useless, he ruins everything, he always has. He's not capable of making good decisions, Divad always—

Divad.

Divad wasn't real. The monster—

The monster knew what was best for him. That's what it always said. What if it did? And now it's gone and— 

"I'm sorry," David says, throat tight. "I don't know if it was real but— I thought—" He glances at the door again. "Someone came in. A woman, she— I tried to stop her, but—" He swallows. "I tried to wake you up."

"This was last night?" Amahl asks, soberly.

God, it just gets worse. "Yesterday," David admits. "During our nap. She did something on the computer, I don't—"

"And you didn't say anything?" Amahl asks. "You had hours to tell me, and you said nothing?"

"She said not to tell!" David protests. 

"Ah," Amahl says, knowingly. "And you obeyed her, just like that?"

David doesn't know how to answer that. He just felt like he had to. 

Amahl takes a sip of his coffee, sets the cup down. "Would you obey her again?"

David stares. "I— I don't know," he admits.

"You want to," Amahl says. "This power she has over you. You want to obey even though it could cost you everything I have given you."

David hunches in on himself, expecting the worst. What will happen to him? If Amahl abandons him— He can't go back to college or his family— He can't be on his own— "Please," he begs.

Amahl gives him a hard, considering look— And then he softens. "You are very fortunate, David, that I am a forgiving man. And also that this woman you wish to obey so much— Is my daughter."

David gapes. " _What_ —" He thought— They didn't have any—

No. No, they— Amahl didn't have another _son_. Of course they have a daughter, David remembers— Melanie said— She's away at school—

The card lock gives a soft beep, and the lab door opens— And there she is, blonde hair in pigtails, ice-blue eyes. David tenses warily.

"It's all right," Amahl says. "Please, join us."

Amahl's daughter sits down between Melanie and Amahl. "David," she says, staring him down. "What did I tell you?"

"Not to tell," David admits. "But— I had to." He looks at Amahl, then back to Amahl's daughter. "I'm not supposed to have any secrets."

"No," Amahl's daughter agrees. "You dreamed about me last night. You want me."

David looks at Melanie, betrayed.

"Ah, ah," Amahl says. "No secrets. We must know every part of you, my dear, no matter how intimate. You are too important. Unless— You no longer wish to be my key?"

"No, of— of course—" David stammers. "Please. I just— What's happening? I don't understand."

"It's very simple," Amahl's daughter says. "I've been assisting my dad with his work. Just like my mom." She smiles at Melanie, and Melanie smiles back. She turns back to David. "I was in med school when he found you and saved your life. When you woke up, he asked for my help. His dream is very important, more important than anything else."

Med school? "You're, uh, a doctor?" David asks, seizing on the first thing that makes sense.

"Almost," Amahl's daughter says. "But I am one of your doctors, David. And yesterday was part of your therapy."

"It was?" David asks, leaning back. 

Amahl's daughter nods. "We needed to test you to see how you were progressing."

"How, uh— How did I do?" David asks, bracing himself.

"As expected," Amahl says. "For the most part. There were some surprises." He smiles. "But not all bad." He turns to his daughter. "But where are our manners? Please, introduce yourself to our patient."

"I'm Syd," Amahl's daughter says. "Sydney Farouk." She holds out a gloved hand, and David cautiously takes it. 

"I'm David," David says, reflexively. "Obviously. Um." He lets go, looks around. "This is all— Really confusing."

"I've read all your test results," Syd says. "Your brain damage is healing well."

"You know how long I sleep," David says, remembering his surprise.

"I know everything my dad knows," Syd says. " _Everything_.”

Oh god. "I'm really sorry," David says, cringing. 

"It's okay," Syd assures him. "Telepathic therapy is extremely intimate. You don't have a choice about how you feel. It's— Sweet, that you were willing to risk everything just for the chance to see me again." She gives him a small smile.

"But foolish," Amahl chides.

"Amahl," Melanie cautions. "These feelings are a sign of David's improvement."

Amahl gives a thoughtful hum. "David must focus on his therapy. But he has much to heal from. If Syd’s presence has a— Positive effect, then I will allow it.” He turns to David. “Would you like to spend some time with my daughter, my dear?”

David isn’t sure about any of this, but he feels like he can only really give one answer. “Sure, um— If it’s okay?” He still wants to see Syd, but he can’t risk doing anything to upset Amahl again. He needs Amahl’s help, his medication. David’s entire recovery depends on him. What was he even thinking yesterday?

“Shh shh,” Amahl soothes. “I cannot have you setting yourself back, _joonam_.”

The familiar pet name feels like forgiveness. David takes a sharp, relieved breath. “Can I have my shot now?” he asks, hopeful. 

“Of course,” Amahl says. “Ah, Syd. Would you like the pleasure of giving David his shot?”

“Sure,” Syd says, and gets up. 

She doesn’t even need to ask where David’s medication is. She goes to the work area and takes out the next dose. She really has been part of David’s treatment all this time. She brought their food, took things in and out, she— Can she hear his thoughts?

“Of course she can,” Amahl says. “She could hardly help us treat you without knowing everything we know. But Syd grew up with Melanie's telepathy. It’s very natural to all of us.”

David grew up with telepathy, too. But it was the monster’s telepathy. He’ll never hear other people’s thoughts again. He’s barely grappled with that, with not being a mutant anymore. He has so much work ahead of him. It’s no wonder Amahl needed help. 

“You’ll be okay,” Syd says, confidently. She sits down next to David and sets the injection supplies on the table. “You’re safe with all of us, David. We just want you to get better.”

David looks into her eyes. Even after everything that just happened— All he can think is that she’s beautiful. He can’t help it. He feels like— He’d do anything for her. 

“Then roll up your sleeve,” Syd says, amused. 

David blushes again and obeys her. He’s glad that she’s part of Amahl’s therapy. He would never want to have to actually choose between them.

“You don’t have to, _joonam_ ,” Amahl assures him. “My daughter is very loyal to me, just like you.”

“Just a pinch,” Syd warns, and she starts the injection. David feels the medication going into him and does what he always does. He imagines Amahl inside him, healing him. It’s strange for someone else to be giving him his shot, but— Syd is Amahl’s daughter. So she’s a Farouk. She's part of Amahl, and Amahl is part of her.

“There,” Syd says. She takes out the needle and covers the injection site with a small bandage. She rubs his arm to encourage the medication to circulate. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you,” David says, and looks at her gloved arms. “Can I ask— Why you wear gloves?” It made sense for her to wear them while posing as a thief, but now?

“You don’t have to say,” Melanie cautions. 

“No, it’s all right,” Syd says. “I know everything about David. It’s only fair for him to learn something about me.” She takes off the long gloves, and—

She has scars on her arms, old and faded but undeniable. And they’re just like the ones on David’s arms. 

“I’m sorry,” David says, automatically. He never wanted anyone to feel the way he’s felt. 

“This is why my dad’s work is so important,” Syd says, soberly. “So no one will ever hurt that way ever again. Including both of us.” 

She rests a hand over David's scars, bare skin-to-skin. David looks at it for a long moment, then meets her eyes. 

"Are you ashamed?" he asks, needing to.

"Sometimes," Syd admits. "The gloves protect me from— Prying eyes. Questions I don't feel like answering."

David nods, understanding. 

"One day we won't have to hide our scars," Syd tells him. "And we won't have to explain them. They won't have the power to separate us anymore."

David was attracted to Syd before, but now— He thinks he really might be in love.

Syd smiles and ducks her head. "You're very sweet, but you're my patient. But doctors and patients can still be friends?"

"I'd like that," David says, smiling himself. Friends.


	113. Interlude IV: Kerry needs you to wake up

The door to Cary's office opens and a young woman walks in. He glances at his notebook to remind himself of his new patient's details.

"Kerry," he greets, warmly. "I'm so glad you came."

Kerry is nervous, her body language tight and restless. "I hope you can help me, Doctor Loudermilk," she says. "I just don't understand what's happening to me."

"I'm sure we can get it all sorted out," Cary assures her. "Why don't you tell me what's upsetting you?"

"I've always been kinda forgetful," Kerry admits. "But lately— It's been a lot worse. People will come up to me and act like I'm supposed to know stuff we never talked about."

"That must be very distressing," Cary says, concerned.

"It freaks me out," Kerry says, brow furrowed with confusion and anger. "At first I thought it was a practical joke but— Sometimes it's people I don't know at all! Why would they do that to me?"

"It sounds like there's some confusion going on," Cary says. "Is there anything else wrong?"

Kerry huffs and leans back against the sofa. "I dunno. Like I said, I'm forgetful. But like— I usually don't forget if I bought something. I thought someone was stealing my credit card but the bank replaced it for me and it still keeps happening, even if I don't use my card at all! And sometimes my passwords change, or there's food in my fridge I didn't buy and I don't even like! I feel like— I'm haunted or something. Or I have some kind of crazy stalker. Everyone thinks I'm crazy."

"And that's how you ended up here?" Cary says, glancing at his notebook again. 

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Kerry asks, strained. 

"Not at all," Cary says. "I think what's happening to you is very real. Summerland helps people with all kinds of problems. Sometimes those problems are a little bit complicated, and it's hard to deal with them all on our own. There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help."

"I've been asking," Kerry says, annoyed. 

"And here we are," Cary says, smiling. He's always found a calm demeanor helps ease his patients' minds. By the time they get to him, they've usually been doubted and disbelieved for a long time, and blamed for whatever ills they suffered from. Support and respect are essential to a positive outcome. "What you describe could be caused by a number of factors. I think we can rule out a stalker, at least a human one. It's possible that we're dealing with some kind of psychic phenomena."

"A psychic stalker?" Kerry asks, wide-eyed.

"We take such things extremely seriously," Cary tells her. "The percentage of the mutant population with psychic powers is small, but such mutants can be incredibly powerful. There have been cases of psychic stalkers before. If that's what's happening to you, you've absolutely come to the right place."

"Thank god," Kerry says, her whole body slumping with relief. 

"Based on the material you provided, the police and your bank haven't been able to identify the source of these invasions," Cary says. "So we can probably rule out simple fraud or stalking. With your permission, I'd like to bring in one of our therapeutic telepaths."

Kerry tenses up again. 

"You're uncomfortable with mind reading," Cary says. "That's quite normal. But you must have been aware of our methods when you made your appointment."

"Everyone says you guys are the best," Kerry says. "It's just— Kinda— Weird and creepy? Sorry."

Cary chuckles. "That's how new things are: a little strange and unsettling. But everyone here is dedicated to the work of helping others, especially our telepaths. Imagine always hearing the thoughts of others. Imagine if those thoughts were unhappy, anxious, even depressed— And there was no way to escape them?"

"Sounds awful," Kerry says.

Cary nods. "It used to be that people suffered in silence because no one could hear their pain. That's no longer the case. The mutant population increases all the time, and so do the number of telepaths. Global mental health is increasingly important for their own mental health. That's why so many telepaths come here to help make the world a better, happier place." He pauses. "Is it okay to bring him in now?"

Kerry nods.

The door opens and Oliver walks in. He sits down next to Kerry and offers his hand. "Kerry, it's good to meet you. I'm Oliver and I'm going to help you. Okay?"

Kerry hesitates, then shakes his hand. "Okay. Um." She gives him a nervous look.

"Oliver is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality," Cary assures her. "Just like all our staff. All he's going to do is listen to your thoughts and see if there's anything unusual happening in your mind. If there's evidence of telepathic invasion, he'll be able to detect it."

"Will it hurt?" Kerry asks.

"You won't feel anything at all," Oliver assures her. "Just relax. Close your eyes."

Kerry closes her eyes, and Oliver raises his hand to her head. He doesn't touch her, but closes his own eyes and listens for a long minute. Then he smiles.

"You've definitely come to the right place," Oliver tells her. "I know exactly what the problem is."

"You do?" Kerry says, eagerly.

'You're right,' Oliver sends to Cary. 'I heard four separate streams of conscious thoughts, and another five are dreaming. She's a system.'

'Any sign of psychic interference?' Cary asks.

'We'll see what the genetic test says, but she seems to be purely human,' Oliver thinks back. He turns back to Kerry. "Kerry, it's been a pleasure meeting you. Cary's going to work with you, but I'll be back to help as needed. You'll be just fine."

"Um, thank you," Kerry says. She watches Oliver go, then turns to Cary, expectant.

"I'm happy to say it's not a psychic stalker," Cary says, getting that one out of the way. This sort of thing is always delicate, no matter how many times he does it. "Kerry, we know what's happening to you. And we can absolutely help you with it. But I'm afraid— This may not be easy for you to accept."

Kerry's relief vanishes. "What do you mean?" she asks, worried.

"This forgetfulness," Cary says. "You said it's afflicted you your whole life?"

"Pretty much," Kerry says. 

"Do you remember much of your childhood?" Cary asks, treading carefully.

Kerry pulls in on herself, shrugs. "Does it matter?"

"Very much," Cary says, gently. "Sometimes in our childhood, or even when we're older, our minds can become tremendously stressed. A kind of survival mechanism kicks in. It allows us to compartmentalize our trauma so we can survive and continue to function. But these changes stay with us. They can affect our day-to-day lives, our memories, our relationships."

"There's something wrong with me?" Kerry asks, upset.

"Not wrong, but different," Cary cautions. "And you're not alone. We've helped many people in your situation."

"Just tell me what it is," Kerry says, tightly.

"Based on Oliver's observation, you have something called Dissociative Identity Disorder," Cary tells her. "Colloquially known as multiple personalities."

Kerry's eyes go wide. "I'm _crazy?_ Oh god, I'm crazy." She covers her face, distressed.

There's a knock on the door, and Oliver opens it again. "Cary, you're needed."

"Right now?" Cary asks. "Oliver, this isn't a good time."

"Kerry needs you to wake up," Oliver says. 

Cary looks over at Kerry, weeping on the sofa. "Oliver, if this is a joke, it's in very poor taste. Please go."

"Very well." Oliver sighs. "The natural pathos of the human soul, naked original skin beneath our dreams and robes of thought." He leaves, closing the door again.

Cary turns back to help Kerry, but she's gone. Strange, there's no other doors out of his office. He goes to the window and looks out. He sees David, Divad, and Dvd lounging on a picnic blanket in the sun. Amy, Lenny, and Syd are with them, and they all look so happy. They're all eating cherries and cheesy toast.

Cary opens the window. "Did you see a young woman? About— Yea high?" He holds his hand to the correct height.

They shake their heads no.

Cary pulls back inside. "Strange," he mutters. Perhaps he should go help Oliver after all. He walks out of his office, past the forest display and the stuffed goat. Summerland is bustling as usual, patients and students and doctors and teachers all mixing and mingling. Eventually he finds Oliver sitting at a cafeteria table and tinkering with the coffee machine. The man is an inveterate tinkerer. 

"Oliver," Cary calls, trying to get his attention. "You said you needed me?"

Oliver looks up. "No. Perhaps it was Melanie?"

"Maybe," Cary says. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'll go find her."

"That is a good idea," Oliver says, and bends back down again.

"Melanie?" Cary calls, searching from room to room. He can't find her anywhere in the main building, so he goes outside. Maybe she's with a patient? He follows the narrow footpath over the bridge and into the forest. He sees three figures in the glass cube.

"Melanie," Cary says, relieved, as he walks inside. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"You found me," Melanie says, calmly amused. "We're doing memory work."

"Would you like to join us?" Ptonomy asks. 

"We can make you whole," David promises.

Cary takes a seat, grips the psychic conductors. "I'm worried— What if I remember everything wrong?"

"It'll be okay. Where do you want to go?" Ptonomy asks. "What do you want to see? Feel it all again."

Cary's hands are sweating. He adjusts his grip on the metal handles and tries to clear his mind. He doesn't want to look back. He's afraid of what he'll find. 

_Mom._

The tableau is a young boy, perhaps five. He's pale and blond and blue-eyed, and he looks nothing like his mother. He doesn't know why he's so different, but sometimes different is all he feels. Even when people don't say it, he sees it in their faces, in their eyes. 

_Freak._

"Try and see it from the inside," Ptonomy urges. "Go back in your body, in the moment."

Cary lets his mind slip. He opens his eyes, and _she's a young girl, perhaps five. She's Assiniboine, like her mother and her father, and shares their straight dark hair and dark eyes. Sometimes people are mean to her, call her names, and it hurts. But she belongs to her family, her tribe. She knows she belongs._

_Her mother sits with her and brushes her long hair, working out the knots. Cary feels calm and safe and loved._

But then the brush glides through short hair and touches his bare neck. His mother gasps and pushes him away. He falls to the carpet, and he's older, fully grown. He smells alcohol and cigarette smoke. He curls in on himself, afraid, ashamed.

"Mom, please," Cary begs.

"Came out wrong," Mom mutters, tired and bitter. "You ruined my life, you know that?"

"I know," Cary says. "I know I ruined everything, but _please_. Let me help you. I'm your _son_."

"I don't know what you are," Mom says. "I know what you were supposed to be, what the doctors said you'd be. If I didn't watch you come out of me—" She looks away, takes a drag of her cigarette. 

Cary sits up. He brings up his knees and hugs them, hides his tears. Coming back here was a mistake, but how can he leave? Whatever she does to him, he knows he deserves it. He's always deserved it.

But he feels Kerry stir inside him, waking up from sleep, and he can't subject her to this. For her, he finds the strength to stand up and walk away. Only for her.

"Mister Loudermilk," the doctor says, and Cary turns back to him. "We need to talk about your treatment."

"It’s not schizophrenia," Cary says, desperately. He doesn't want to be sick. He's used to being a freak but he doesn't want to be sick. "Kerry's real, I swear. When she comes out of me I can touch her."

The doctor gives him a patient look, but not an understanding one. 

"I know how it sounds," Cary admits. "But I know what's real. She's not a delusion. She's my— My friend, I—"

It's no use. Kerry won't come out if anyone else might see her, she's too afraid. She has every reason to be afraid. Cary doesn't want them to become some kind of— Medical experiment, to be tested and dissected. But protecting her means—

"I know you're scared," the doctor says. "We'd prefer to manage your symptoms if we can. Fever treatments and lobotomies— They're for the era of _dementia praecox_. There are new electro-convulsive therapies that show promise.”

"Shock therapy?" Cary asks, horrified.

"I understand you were attending medical school," the doctor says. "They gave you medication, tried to treat your symptoms. But that’s over. This disease is progressive. The school can't waste their resources on a lost cause." He looks down and makes a note. 

"I'm not sick," Cary says, angrily. "Kerry's real!"

"Orderlies!" the doctor calls, alarmed. Two men dressed in white come in and take hold of Cary's arms. 

"Put him in solitary," the doctor tells them. "Just until he calms down. Let's start with 48 hours and see how he behaves."

"You can't do this to me!" Cary shouts, struggling. "Please! Let me go!"

'Cary?' Kerry thinks. 'What's going on?'

He didn't want her to wake up for this. It's better when she sleeps. But it’s too late. 

_Cary opens her eyes and looks down at the degree in her hands. One of the first women to train as a doctor at her university, and the first Native woman to graduate._

_“I’m so proud of you,” Dad says, tears in his eyes._

_“My sweet girl,” Mom says, looking like she’s so proud she might burst. “I always believed in you, always.”_

“No one’s ever going to believe me,” Cary tells Kerry, mournful. He knows she’s real, he knows it. But telling the doctors that only makes them more certain that he's insane.

‘They’re hurting you,’ Kerry thinks, upset. ‘I hate this place, it’s awful.”

“I know,” Cary sighs. He looks around the asylum. This isn’t a place where patients get better. It’s a place to put them out of the way. And the treatments they force on him are little more than torture. There's a new medication that they're giving him that's supposed to replace the shock therapy, but it makes him feel so awful.

Kerry sleeps a lot here. Cary’s glad. He doesn’t ask her to come out anymore. That’s the last thing she should ever do. 

“We have to leave before—“ Cary trails off. He heard a rumor that they were going to sterilize all the patients soon. He loathes eugenicists. Monsters, all of them. “We have to escape.”

‘I’ll help,’ Kerry thinks, boldly. ‘I’m small. I can sneak around and steal the keys.’

“It’s too dangerous,” Cary insists. 

‘You’re always being brave for me,’ Kerry thinks. ‘I wanna be brave for you.’

Cary sighs. He doesn't know what kind of life they'll have even if they do manage to get free. His dreams of being a doctor, of helping people— They can't be anything but over. The world decided what he is and he has no say in it. 

But the world hasn't touched Kerry. No matter what it costs, he has to keep her safe. It's going to be terrifying, breaking out of this place, but he has to do it for her.

"Okay," he agrees. "But please be careful, _please_."

Kerry steps out of him, and Cary lets out a soft grunt. She hasn't been outside of him since they were taken here. It always feels strange when she does it, like— He's a little empty without her. She's a part of him that's gone missing.

She's barely aged since he first saw her, even though it's been years. He wonders if he'll spend his whole life with a little girl inside him. If he could only stop talking to her, accept that she's a fantasy, a delusion— maybe they'd let him go. But she feels so real. She hugs him and he holds her tight.

Kerry gives him an intense, meaningful look, but doesn't say anything.

"Kerry, you have to say things aloud when you're outside me," Cary reminds her. "With your mouth."

Kerry struggles, concentrates. Cary realized early on that she won't do 'outside things' without his urging. He can help her with some of it even with her inside him. He taught her to read, made word games out of his studies to engage her in learning. Before they were taken here, when she would come out they played the same games aloud, to encourage her to speak, to exercise her lingual and facial muscles. Not using them for long periods seems to make it harder for her to talk. 

It's been a while, this time.

"'m gonna protect you," Kerry says, slightly slurred but determined. 

"Find somewhere to hide," Cary advises. "Wait for an opportunity to steal the keys, then stay hidden until everyone's asleep. I'll wait for you."

Kerry gives him one last hug before she goes. 

The hours she's gone are the longest of Cary's life. He feels so utterly alone without her. He often wonders if maybe he is mad after all, if Kerry isn't his mysteriously real imaginary friend but a schizophrenic delusion. Maybe he belongs in this asylum. But if he doesn't respond to the treatments, he knows what will become of him. He's not a person anymore, not to these doctors. He's just a sickness he might not even have.

If he ever gets out of here, if he can somehow make a new life for himself and Kerry— He has to make sure no one ever gets misdiagnosed again. Maybe that's an impossible fantasy, but he holds on to it anyway, tucks that hope deep in his heart.

When he hears the jangle of keys, he sits up, his heart in his throat. He doesn't dare call out. But the door opens and—

It's Kerry. Thank god she's alright.

"Quickly," he whispers, going up to her. "Give me the keys and get back inside."

But she doesn't give him the keys, she doesn't step inside him where she belongs. She just frowns at him.

"Cary, I can't," Kerry says, without any of her usual difficulty. And then he realizes she's older. When did she get so grown up? Is she too big to fit inside him anymore? "Of course not. You're the one inside me, remember?" 

"You heard my thoughts?" Cary asks, surprised.

"Of course I did," Kerry says, tolerantly. "I'm on the outside now. Everything's reversed. So I'll just do what you did, and you do what I did, and we'll be fine."

"No," Cary says, stepping backwards. "Please, I don't want that."

"We can't stay here," Kerry insists. "Just get inside me and we can leave."

There's a noise outside the door. 

"Someone's coming," Kerry whispers. "Get inside me right now!"

"Please, no," Cary begs, but there's a pull he can't resist. It takes hold of him and forces him to go to her. She opens her arms wide and he falls inside, into darkness.

_Darkness. Warm and tight, holding her from all around. She hears sounds but she doesn't know what they are. Some of the sounds never stop, like the _thump thump thump thump_. Sometimes the thumps are slow and even, and sometimes they're fast. She feels bad when they're fast, so Kerry sleeps. When bad things happen she sleeps._

Cary sleeps in a narrow bed in a coldwater apartment in the city. He takes jobs at places that don't ask too many question, that don't care that he talks to himself all the time. It's not the same as fixing people, but he finds he likes fixing things: radios, TVs, all kinds of gadgets. He stays current on the latest technologies to stimulate his mind. He's fascinated by the new computer kits and he's saving up to buy another one. 

When he's working at night and things are quiet, Kerry likes to come out and help him. The more time she spends outside of him, the older she gets. Still very slowly, but— He's not sure if he's relieved or not. He's never figured out what she is, what they are. If it's all in his head, if he's actually schizophrenic or something worse. Now that she's growing up, when he looks at her she reminds him so much of his mother. _Their_ mother, perhaps. 

He stares at himself in the mirror after brushing his teeth. Where did his face come from? Mom always insisted she never cheated on Dad, and there's nothing about him that bears any resemblance to either of them, the obvious aside. In Irish mythology, fairies steal human babies and replace them with their own children. Sometimes Cary thinks he's one of those creatures and Kerry was the human he replaced, and somehow they got stuck together. But it's only a story.

And maybe that would have been it. He would have spent the rest of his life in back rooms, staying out of sight and wondering who and what he is. But then—

"I hear you're good at fixing things," says the man. He has a beard and an accent that Cary can't quite place. "I have something I'd like you to fix, but it's too big to move. Do you do home visits?"

"Uh, that rather depends," Cary says, adjusting his glasses. "There will be an extra charge for travel."

"Oh, that's no problem," the man says. "I've been building a computer. It’s only the size of a fridge! It's amazing how small they can make them these days."

"Vacuum tubes?" Cary asks.

"Transistors," the man says, proudly. "When can you come out?"

Cary glances at his schedule. "I'm afraid things are rather busy right now."

"High demand," the man says. "Tell you what. We can do this off the books, if you like. In your free time. How about tomorrow night? I'll make it worth your while."

That sounds suspicious to Cary. But he does need the money; it's not like he's paid what he's worth here. And the chance to work on a computer like that is deeply tempting. "Okay," he says, and takes the man's name, address, and a sizeable deposit.

“Oliver Bird,” he reads. He folds the paper and puts it and the cash into his pocket.


	114. Interlude IV: To belong somewhere and not be sick.

Cary has his doubts, but he takes the bus and then walks the rest of the way, his work bag slung over his shoulder, chatting to Kerry about this and that. Oliver Bird lives at a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere. Not the kind of place Cary expected to go to fix a computer.

He realizes, belatedly, that Oliver never actually told him what was wrong with it. But by then he's already knocking on the door.

"Ah, wonderful!" Oliver says, all smiles, then turns and calls: "Melanie! Our guest is here."

"Come in, come in," says a blonde woman as she approaches them. "You're here to help Oliver?"

"Yes ma’am," Cary says. 

"Oh, there's no need for that," Melanie says. "Call me Melanie, please."

Cary hesitates, but doesn't feel he can say no. "Melanie," he tries, and she's pleased.

"We have plenty of work to do," Oliver says. "But we can't start on an empty stomach."

"Oh, that's very generous, but—" Cary starts.

"My husband is an excellent cook," Melanie assures him. "He loves feeding people and it's just the two of us here for now." She looks him up and down, notices the dirt on his shoes. "Did you walk all this way?"

"I took the bus," Cary says. 

"You should have said, we would have picked you up," Melanie says. "Now you have to sit down and rest."

"Thank you," Cary says, because what else can he say? 

'These people are weird,' Kerry thinks. 'Weird and creepy.'

Cary bites back a reply. "Can I use your washroom to clean up?" he asks.

"Of course," Oliver says, and points the way.

Once Cary is safely inside, he turns on the tap as a noise screen and faces the mirror. Somehow it makes him feel a little less crazy to have a face to talk to, even if it's just his own. "Kerry, that was rude."

'Who cares?' Kerry thinks. 'They can't hear me. And they are weird. What're they even doing out here? Why did they hire us?'

"Are you going to come out and help?" Cary asks, somewhere between a joke and a challenge.

'Whatever,' Kerry thinks. 'We should leave before they trap us in their basement and try to sacrifice us.'

"I knew those comic books were a mistake," Cary sighs. They gave Kerry far too many odd ideas. It would matter more if she was ever going to have to survive on her own, but— He was just happy to have her actually engaged enough with the world to find something she likes. "The world is not full of— Devil worshippers and aliens."

'That's how they operate,' Kerry thinks, dramatically. 'They pretend to be nice so you're lured into their lair and then bam! They get you! You gotta karate chop them and run!'

"Hmm," Cary returns, unimpressed. "Let's just get through the evening. We don't know how long this will take and it's a long walk back to the bus stop."

He washes up and walks back out again, and finds Melanie and Oliver in the kitchen. It's rustic but welcoming, decorated with items from all over the world and photos of Oliver and Melanie together, looking utterly in love. Cary finds himself relaxing. Devil worshippers indeed.

"Have you ever had an Indian curry before?" Oliver asks, as he carries over a pot from the stove. 

"No, but if that's what that is, it smells amazing," Cary says. "What's in it?"

"A good stew's the same the world over," Oliver declares. "Tough cuts simmered soft, hearty vegetables. The joy of the world is in the spice."

Not the most helpful ingredient list, but Cary decides not to press. He copies them, taking scoops of rice and curry, and digs in. "This is delicious!" he declares, the strange flavors lighting him up. There's a bit of a burn, but it's pleasant. 

'Ugh, food,' Kerry complains. 'I don't know how you can do that. It's so gross.'

Cary can't chide her in front of the Birds and she knows it. He takes another bite in retaliation, and because he enjoys it. No matter how hard he's tried, Kerry has always refused to eat. She doesn't seem to need food, since she gets everything she needs from him, assuming she even needs caloric energy in the first place. If she's a delusion it's hardly relevant. 

"Not a delusion," Oliver says, casually. "Kerry’s far too headstrong for that."

Cary’s spoon drops from his nerveless fingers and clatters against the plate before falling to the floor. Did he just— No, that's— What? _What?_

'Did he just—' Kerry thinks, alarmed. 'Cary, what's going on?'

"I don't know," Cary says, staring at Oliver. Has it finally happened? Has his disease progressed enough to make him truly lose his mind?

"Oliver," Melanie chides, fondly. She turns to Cary. "I apologize for my husband. Oliver has a flair for the dramatic. Please, don't be afraid, either of you."

Cary stares at her. _What is happening?_

"We just want to help you," Melanie soothes. "Oliver is a mutant like you. A mind reader."

"A— A mutant?" Cary asks, confused.

'A mind reader?' Kerry thinks, excited like she gets when she reads her pulpy comic books. 'They're aliens!'

"Not aliens," Oliver says. "Though I think I'd look dashing with a pair of antennae." He brings his hands up next to his head, raises his index fingers and waggles them. Inside Cary's head, Kerry laughs.

"Mutants are people with unusual powers," Melanie explains. "Oliver can sense them. There are mutants all over the world, every one of them unique." She holds out her hand to Oliver, and Oliver takes it. "It's our dream to help them. To show them they're not alone."

"You're not alone," Oliver tells them. 

"Cary, I'm sure that— Your whole life, people told you you were sick," Melanie says. "But what if they were wrong? What if this— Mental illness you believe you suffer from is actually your power? We want to give you the chance to rewrite the story of your life."

"I'm sorry," Cary says, deeply confused. "I think you must— This is obviously all a mistake. I don't know who you think I am, but— I have schizophrenia, split mind, or— Multiple personalities. Maybe both."

"Do you?" Oliver challenges. "Or are you two people who have the power to share a body?"

"No, that's—" Cary starts. "We're not two people."

"That's not what I hear," Oliver says. "Kerry, you're a person, aren't you?"

'Of course,' Kerry thinks. 

"Well there you have it," Oliver declares. "Why don't you come out? We'd love to see you."

'No,' Kerry thinks, firmly. 'I only come out for Cary.'

"You must love him very much," Oliver says.

'Of course I love him, he's Cary,' Kerry thinks.

Cary just stares at Oliver, astonished. No one's _ever_ talked to Kerry, much less while she's _still inside him!_ Was there something in the curry? This is all too much for him. 

"Cary, are you all right?" Melanie asks, concerned.

Cary wipes his brow. He feels a little faint. He takes a sip of his water but it doesn't help. "Mutants, you said?" he asks, weakly.

"Yes," Melanie says. "Humanity seems to be changing, undergoing— Some kind of evolutionary leap. There aren't many mutants yet, but we've found them all over the world, and there are more born every day."

"Are you—" Cary asks.

"No," Melanie admits, somewhat regretful. "I'm just a perfectly ordinary human. But I want to do everything I can to help my husband with his dream of— A safe place for mutants. That's what we're going to build here. And we'd like you to join us, to help us. To be part of Oliver's dream."

"This is—" Cary stands up, paces away and then back. "You don't know that's what I am, this— This mutant thing, I— I'm sick, I—" He doesn't know why he's insisting on this now, when he's spent his whole life trying to reject it. 

"Would you like more proof?" Oliver asks. He picks up his fork and stares at it, and then— It lifts into the air, floats there completely suspended.

Cary walks up to the fork and waves his hand around it. No strings, nothing. He takes it and examines it. It's just a fork.

'This is so much better than demon worshippers,' Kerry thinks.

"Is there even a computer here?" Cary asks, feeling a lot of things but also— Deceived. 

"Oh, absolutely," Oliver says. "But I don't want your help fixing it. I want your help building it."

Cary itches to say yes just on that alone. The challenge, the opportunity— The chance to help people again, to really help them. If this is what he's been all this time, a mutant— No, two mutants who share a body? Is that what they are? The doctors only saw a girl when they were in the womb, but it was Cary who came out of it.

"Perhaps you're mutant twins," Oliver suggests. "There are all kinds of mutant powers, and all of them defy our conventional understanding of reality. But then the world is a much stranger place than people like to pretend. Consider the atom. Something so impossibly small, mostly empty space, and yet—" He raps the table with his knuckles. "It defines our reality. And to split it releases a force of incredible power."

"And one reason for the increase in mutants might be the use of nuclear power," Melanie offers. "Mutants may in some sense be— Children of the atomic age. There's so much we don't yet understand. We need someone who can help us figure all of this out. We know you want to do more than just fix gadgets in some tiny repair shop. Oliver's heard your thoughts, that's how he found you. We know you dream of something more than what the world has allowed you."

'They spied on us,' Kerry thinks, displeased.

"You know so much about us," Cary says. "How long have you been watching?"

"Telepathy is— Somewhat involuntary," Oliver admits. "And mutant minds are louder, more distinct. Beacons, like stars flickering in the night sky. I didn't seek you out. You two came to me."

"I see," Cary says, even though— He doesn't, really. "Even if— If everything you're saying is true, why have I never heard anything about mutants before?"

Oliver and Melanie both sober. "Because there are forces trying to erase us, to wipe us out," Oliver admits. "Governments across the world see us as a threat. Because we _are_ a threat— To their cruelty, their old-fashioned thinking, their greed for power. Mutant powers can't be bought and sold. They're a gift, they're who we are. If we can bring enough mutants together, they'll have to listen to us. We'll have the chance to make the whole world a better place."

"Mutants will be accepted," Melanie says. "They won't be punished for their differences, and neither will anyone else. We can make a utopia, but it has to start here, with us."

"This is— It's a lot," Cary says. "I just came here to fix things."

"Then stay to fix them," Melanie implores. "So many mutants we find— They've been told they're sick or crazy, or they're imprisoned because people think they're too dangerous to be free. We know that's what happened to you. You can help us stop it, and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else ever again."

Cary rests his hands on the back of his chair. He's a very practical person, and none of this sounds remotely practical. He's heard of utopian communes before, read about their ideals and promises, but he never imagined himself joining one. "Do you have any proof that I'm truly a mutant?"

"You have another person inside you," Oliver points out. "Surely that's enough?"

It's hard to deny that. And yet— "She could be a— A hallucination," Cary argues. "No one else has ever seen her."

'Hey, I'm not a hallucination,' Kerry thinks, offended.

"Until today, no one heard her," Oliver counters. "But as Kerry just said, she's not a hallucination. She's a full person in her own right."

"It's time she came out," Melanie urges. "Let us help. You don't have to hide anymore, either of you."

Cary tries to take that in.

"Please, sit back down," Oliver says. "When we finish eating, I can show you my computers."

"You have more than one?" Cary asks, surprised.

"Oh yes," Oliver says, a dreamy look in his eyes. "All sorts."

Oliver sits down. He looks at the curry on his plate, the rice. He feels— A lot of things. Too many. But what they're offering him — a chance to make a difference, to use his skills to the fullest, to realize his own dreams. And they won't be alone. He's struggled so much with Kerry. To finally have someone who can help—

And to not be sick. To belong somewhere and not be sick.

How could he possibly say no?

He picks up his fork and eats. The next day, he quits his job at the repair shop, packs their belongings. He starts his new life and never looks back.

Cary opens his eyes. He's back in the glass room, the forest stretching out in all directions.

"See?" Ptonomy says. "You remembered that just fine."

"You were wrong," Cary says, and turns to Melanie. She's old again, like him. So much time has passed since that night. "You told me I wasn't sick."

"You're not," Melanie insists. "You and Kerry are twins. You each have your own consciousness, your own memories, your own DNA. Your mutant power is to hide one inside the other."

"You're wrong," David tells her. "He's a system. He's sick. His mind shattered like mine. Nothing can ever put it back together. What you told us was wrong. You made us worse."

"Then what's his power?" Melanie challenges. 

"Two minds in one body," David says. "But what does that mean when there's a second body?"

"Either both were real from the start, or only one," Ptonomy declares. "So one of you isn't real."

"I'm the real one," Cary insists.

"How can you be?" Ptonomy counters. "You're on the inside now. You're the delusion, the hallucination. When your body dies, and it's going to die, you'll be trapped forever."

"I don't want that," Cary says, pleading. "Please, it can't be true."

"Four hours was enough for her," Ptonomy says, unmoved. "It should be more than enough for you. You stole her life. That was her in your mother's womb. You should have been her. Everything bad that happened was because of you. It's all your fault."

"No," Cary says, looking to David and Melanie for help. "Please, I don't— I was just a baby. It wasn't my choice!"

"Tell me about it," David sighs. "Why would you want someone else's soul inside you? Look what happened to me! You need to accept what you are, what you've always been."

"You're a mutant," Melanie insists. "Your trauma doesn't matter, it's not who you are. Those bad things only happened because the world didn't accept your gift. The only thing that matters is what you do now, the good you put into the world. Let the past go."

"I can't," Cary admits. "I've tried so hard. I did what you told me to. I did the work and I helped so many people— But I don't know how to help myself. I don't know how to know who I am. I don't know if what he did broke us or fixed us."

"Don't be grateful to him," Ptonomy warns. "He's going to use you. You're just another part of the cow to him."

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Cary says. "I just wanted to help David. He was in so much pain."

The open air, the glass walls, the table— It all fades away. Cary's in a dark room, a Division 3 prison cell. He's sitting on a bed wearing all white, tears in his eyes, his chest heaving with pain.

Kerry's there. She sits down on the bed.

"There's no me," Cary tells her, trembling, barely able to speak through the tightness in his throat. 

"Of course there's a you," Kerry says, so gently. 

"No," Cary sobs. It's all he can say.

"Is that what you think?" Kerry asks. "That you're gone?"

Cary lifts his head, even though he can't stop the tears pouring out of his eyes and there's snot in his nose and he can't stop shaking and he can't breathe. Kerry hugs him. She wraps her arms around him and holds him tight. 

"Sometimes it can take a while to figure everything out," Kerry soothes. "You survived so much. But being inside of me doesn't mean you're not there. You just have to let me help you."

"I'm the one who helps you," Cary says, mournful.

"Everything's reversed now," Kerry tells him. "You've helped so many people. Do you think they're weak because you helped them? Do you think I'm weak?"

"Of course not," Cary says. "But—" He swallows, remembers. He blinks and he's sitting on his bed in the asylum, groggy from shock treatment and anesthesia, listening to someone crying down the hall. And then he's sitting in his dorm room staring at a bottle of pills. And then he's sitting in his childhood bedroom and Mom is pounding on the door, drunk and furious and swearing she'll knock the white boy out of him.

He hugs his knees and curls up tight. He's sorry, he's so sorry. How can he fix them if he doesn't know what they're supposed to be?

The pounding stops, and the doorknob rattles, turns. Cary takes a sharp, scared breath in, bracing himself for the worst. But there's no smell of alcohol, no angry grab to his arm. It's Kerry, all grown up even though he's a little boy.

"You've been asleep for a really long time," Kerry tells him. She sits down with him again. "But it's time to wake up, okay?"

"No," Cary says, refusing. "I'm not ready."

"I wasn't either," Kerry admits. "But it's not up to us. We were changed. I can't hide anymore and I'm not gonna let you start. You've always been so brave for me. Let me be brave for you, and— Help you be brave for yourself. But I can't do that until you wake up. You have to wake up."

"No," Cary cries, but it's too late. She hugs him and he falls into her, and—

Darkness. Warm and tight, holding him from all around. He hears sounds but he doesn't know what they are. Some of the sounds never stop, like the _thump thump thump thump_.

It's a heartbeat, Kerry's heartbeat. It's so loud from inside her, impossibly loud. The breath in her lungs, too, steady and even. The rush of blood in her veins. 

Everything feels wrong. He doesn't fit inside her the way he has to. His body was never meant to fit inside her. Or maybe it was, but— After all this time, whatever should have been simply isn't anymore.

'Help me,' he thinks, desperate. 'Kerry? Oliver? Someone please help me! Please!'

He feels her stir, her body shifting in their bed. Their body? Their heart, their lungs, their veins? He tries to get out of her on his own but he can't. He's stuck again, like before. _Trapped._ What if he never gets free?

'Kerry, wake up,' Cary begs. 'Please wake up!'

"Cary?" Kerry murmurs. Her eyes flutter open and he sees the ceiling of the lab. Kerry sits up and looks down at herself, and he sees the swell of her breasts, her belly, the blanket draped over her legs. She looks around and they see everyone's still asleep. It's dark, not yet morning. " _Finally_ ," she says, and stretches. "You were asleep forever!"

'It hurts,' Cary groans. 'I'm stuck again.'

"Okay, hold on," Kerry says. She squares her shoulders, takes a deep breath, lets it out. "Reach out and I'll take your hand."

Cary reaches, pushing against the tightness. Through Kerry's eyes, he sees her reaching into herself. Her hand searches, and then— Her fingertips brush his. He cries out in relief as her hand clasps his own.

"It's gonna be okay," Kerry tells him. "Just like last time. I've got you."

He stops seeing through her eyes as she pulls him free, inch by inch. His connection with her body fades and vanishes, until— There's only _his_ body again. He falls the last distance out of her and collapses on the floor, gasping.

"Cary?" Kerry says, leaning over him, worried. It reminds him of something— Something he was dreaming? But the last wisps of the dream float out of reach, and then they're gone. 

He can't remember. But it was just a dream.


	115. Day 12: Let's try it with the glove off.

Syd drifts from a dream and opens her eyes to the bright morning sun. When she winces and turns away, something falls from her lap and slides to the floor. Syd cracks open one eye and sees— The transcripts. 

She stayed up late last night, first watching the surveillance footage, then reading and re-reading the transcripts of the day's therapy and conversations. She must have fallen asleep when she was reading on the sofa. She sits up and stretches, gathers the fallen papers and puts them on the coffee table, then tries to get her bearings. 

David is still asleep and the inducer is still on him, so presumably Divad and Dvd are out, too. But the other beds are empty and there's no sign of Oliver, Kerry, or the others.

It's blissfully quiet. Syd hasn't had much quiet since David came back. She leans back and listens to the faint murmur of morning traffic through the thick window glass. They're only a few stories off the ground, but it reminds her of quiet mornings on the thirty-first floor. The pencil-scratch of her mom's writing, the whisper of a turned page, the traffic murmuring far below.

She dreamed of David, unsurprisingly. She would have been surprised to dream about anything else. She thought about David so much last night, about their relationship and what they've meant to each other. About Divad and Dvd and what they endured, what they felt, what they feel now. And in the face of all that—

God, she wishes they could go back. She wants it to be the two of them on her cartoon island again. She accepts that it can't be, that the complexity of David's life makes that absolutely impossible. But in her heart it's what she wants and she doesn't know how to reconcile that. There's no way for her to just— Have David again, for him to only be hers. She has to share him with so many people, and it hurts her. She knows it's wrong to feel that way but she does. 

In the dream, David was— The way he used to be. The way they used to think he was. Powerless, human, with only a single mind. She was the one who was making him whole, and she knew that— Once she did, it would be impossible for him to ever leave her. And it felt _so good._

She grabs her notebook from the coffee table and walks over to where David is sleeping, takes one of the chairs beside his bed.   
She didn't just watch David in the surveillance footage. He was usually with her when he wasn't sneaking off to help Farouk or her future self, so she saw a lot of herself. She saw herself having sex with a man who wasn't there. 

He's here now, all flesh and bone. She wants to reach out to him as he sleeps, like she used to. She wants to touch his body again, to run her gloved hand down his chest and feel the needles pricking under her skin. She wants to lie against him and see how much she can take before the needles are too much. 

Every night she did that, she would imagine— His astonishment and joy when she finally held his hand, when she hugged him. His gratitude and praise for all her hard work. But instead, when she told him— First he couldn't process it, and then— He looked at her with such shocked betrayal.

She should have asked him, she knows that now. She should have told him what she needed and of course he would have helped her. He would have done anything for her. But she was angry at him for not being there to help her before. He was gone for a year, he wouldn't tell her what happened to him. If he wasn't going to share, why should she? Why shouldn't she just take what she needed? If he would really do anything for her, he'd let her use him. He _owed_ her.

It all made perfect sense at the time. But that's the same logic that her future self used. It's the same logic Syd has always used. The world owes her and she's going to take what she's owed, whether the world wants to give it or not. Especially if it doesn't want to because she's always relished a fight, the chance to give back some of her pain. The bullies and those big game hunters— She was eager to hurt them back with interest. She never imagined herself joining the military, but it turned out to be just what she needed.

What was it Ptonomy said about her? She has a history of aggression and disregard for the rights of others. Even though Melanie helped her work on those things— They couldn't make those parts of herself go away. All she did was learn how to manage them, to recognize when it was okay to hurt people and when it wasn't. To channel her aggression into the appropriate parts of her work and keep it out of her personal life.

But she forgot all those lessons when David returned. It was a shock for her, of course. Looking back she sees that, and how that shock made her revert, just like shocks make David and Dvd and Divad revert. Farouk uses shocks the same way he uses memory and love: as powerful weapons, as sculpting tools for his sunrises. 

It worries her to know that. When Farouk goes after David again, when he unleashes whatever awful shock he has planned for them— Will a few words be enough to save them?

Syd has her doubts. She opens her notebook and looks at her own words. Are they enough to save her? Ptonomy seems to be betting everything on this foundation work, but what other choice do they have? Farouk is too powerful to be stopped with anything but David, that's why Division 3 needed him in the first place. And David is the one thing Farouk wants. Everything comes down to David and if he can heal enough to withstand shocks and memories and love.

It seems like an impossible demand, and yet— Watching that surveillance footage again— The pain she felt that day in the courtroom, her heart ripped open as she begged David to let them help him— It's like the hole in her hand from the hook. It twinges, aches sometimes, but the ragged wound is just a memory. 

It's strange. She's always held on to her pain, used it as a weapon and as armor. Despite all the work she did with Melanie, that never changed. She was so certain it was the only way to survive, so absolutely certain. But if it's possible to let the pain go, to let healing happen— If healing is what the mind and body _want_ to do and the trick is getting out of the way of that, and giving some kind of— Structure to the healing— A solid base and a scaffolding to make it strong—

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, lets it out. She is survival but she can't survive alone. She will accept help, she will give and receive love. Because love makes her strong and pain makes her weak, and if she lets go of her pain, love will help her heal.

She looks at her therapy list. She's making good progress but she knows this is only the start. She has to push herself harder, the way David pushes himself. She has to face her past, not just the last few weeks of it. And she needs to figure out how to be with David without hurting him. They need their own healthy multiplicity if they don't want everything to go wrong again. 

And there are things she needs to accept. David's shame, his neediness and passive acceptance— She’s afraid of them — that’s why she tried to force David to change — but they're as much a part of David as his love. They're who he's always been, and she doubts they'll entirely go away no matter how much he heals. If they did— Would he even be himself anymore? Would she be herself without her aggression and disregard? Who are they if not the stories they tell ourselves?

David is trying to rewrite his story. What story does she want to be? 

She doesn't know. And what if she never figures it out? What if she's incapable of ever being anything other than who she's always been? Her mom never changed. People tried to change her, to drag her down so they could put themselves above her, and she never let them. She never compromised for anyone. Not for the men who claimed to love her, and not for her daughter.

Syd never wants to compromise. She's just like her mom in so many ways, and she hates that about herself even though she clings to it. To give even an inch to someone else always feels like defeat. That's served her well when negotiating against heads of state, but— It's so much of what made things go wrong with David. What was it Ptonomy said? In a healthy relationship, both partners should be able to make the right decisions for themselves. David didn't know how to say no, and she wouldn't let him try. 

She has to let him say no. But what if he says no to her? Will he still love her if she stops hurting him? If she doesn’t?

She writes out her foundation work, revising her foundation, adding to the therapy list. Then she sits and watches David's chest rise and fall. He looks so vulnerable when he's asleep, he always has. He's sleeping peacefully, no nightmares or mountain climbing. She sees a little furrow in his brow and she wants so much to reach out and smooth it away. But she can't. 

The door to the lab opens. It's Ptonomy and Lenny. Syd closes her notebook and stands. 

"Is everything okay?" she asks. 

"Yeah, it's all good," Lenny says. 

"Cary's awake," Ptonomy explains. "He's working through the backlog in the other lab. Oliver's had his turn, so you're up."

"Oh, right," Syd says, remembering the tests and scans they're meant to have. She looks down at herself. "Is it okay if I get cleaned up first?"

"Sure," Ptonomy says. "How about we stop by your room?"

"I've got the sleeping beauties," Lenny says, and takes the seat Syd was in. She has her notebook with her, too. Syd wonders if she made any changes to her foundation work since last night, but now doesn't seem to be the time to ask.

Syd takes one last look back at David, and then follows Ptonomy out of the lab. It's always something of a relief to get out of there, but leaving David behind— She's still afraid that she'll come back and he'll be gone. It should matter that he was right in front of her when the orb took him, but it doesn't.

"How's Cary?" Syd asks, when they reach the elevator.

"A little shaken up," Ptonomy admits. "He's still having trouble being inside of Kerry. Going in is easy, but not getting out."

Syd suppresses a shudder. "I've had nightmares about getting stuck in someone else. But I don't have to swap to survive."

"It's a problem," Ptonomy says, and sighs. "I'll have a session with them today. And they want your help, too. To figure out if they're two souls or one, twins or a system."

"Which do they want it to be?" Syd asks, curious. She's never used her powers diagnostically before.

"I honestly don't think they know," Ptonomy says.

"How are you doing?" Syd asks.

"Better if I could sleep," Ptonomy says. "But we should be fine today. Lenny's better now, I think yesterday really helped her. And Amy's holding on."

"I'm glad," Syd says. "Um. Did Oliver—"

"We got everything," Ptonomy says. "Last night and this morning. Thank you, that was helpful."

"No point in having telepathic therapy if I don't think about what's wrong," Syd says. "I know we don't have a lot of time."

"We don't," Ptonomy agrees, quietly. 

They reach Syd's room and Ptonomy waits while she showers and changes. Syd looks at her reflection and touches the cool surface of the mirror. Is her mind her own again? Was that ever the truth or just another story? She sees so much of her mom, looking at herself. Especially in her eyes. 

"Will we have my session before breakfast again?" Syd asks, as she and Ptonomy head to the other lab.

"You gave me a lot of material," Ptonomy says. "I need time to prepare. But we'll get to you before we start on the Davids. I want you to work on your relationship before David works on his possession trauma."

"Think you can get him through it?" Syd asks. David's struggled with that so much, and she knows she made it worse. 

"We don't have a choice," Ptonomy says. "But the odds are improving. That's all we can ask."

Syd's curious about those odds, about the models the Admiral is using to generate them. But she knows that's the kind of information that Ptonomy needs to keep to the mainframe. Telling her would be telling Farouk, and he knows too much already.

The secondary lab is bustling, with Cary directing Kerry, Amy, and the full research team. It's as unusual to see them as it was to have a few moments of quiet. It reminds her how carefully David's environment is managed, how David is still as much a prisoner as a patient despite their reassurances to him. She wonders if the crown stays on more for that than any worries about David's instability. 

"Morning," Amy greets, and pulls Syd into a hug. Syd's breath catches at the contact, and then— She breathes out, holds Amy back. It still amazes her to be able to comfortably touch another person.

"Did Ptonomy give you a hug this morning?" Amy asks.

Syd shakes her head. Amy gives Ptonomy a pointed look.

"Sorry," Ptonomy says, and comes over. He opens his arms, and Syd hesitates, then accepts the hug. "I'm not really used to this either," he admits.

"I wake up in the morning with a dream in my eyes," Oliver says. He's sitting in the exam chair, and Kerry is removing electrodes from his head. "Hello, Syd."

"Um, hey," Syd says. She still never quite knows what to make of Oliver. Sometimes he seems to lose himself in the relay, and sometimes he seems very present, if not entirely coherent. "How are you? Did you sleep well?"

"How many years awake or sleepy? How many mornings to be or not to be?" Oliver recites. "And now I feel restored."

"Okay, all done," Kerry says. "Syd, you're up."

Oliver gets up and Syd takes his seat. Kerry puts fresh electrodes on a tray and gives the tray to Syd. "Put these here, here, and here," she says, pointing at spots on her own head. Syd complies.

"We'll do your security scans first," Cary says. "And then—" He hesitates.

"We want to do soul tests," Kerry says, obviously excited. "Is that okay?"

"Sure," Syd says. "Ah, what do you need?"

"We understand the body, and mostly understand the mind," Cary says, as he types on his keyboard. "But the soul is— Quite honestly we know very little except that it exists. Your powers are our best hope for analyzing its properties."

"And then we want you to swap with us," Kerry says, eagerly.

"Kerry," Cary cautions.

"Cary, we need to know," Kerry insists. "Either we have one soul or two. I need to understand us and I can't do that until we figure this out."

Cary makes a displeased noise, but doesn't argue. "We have to get everyone’s tests done first. We don't know how the swap will affects us. It made David feel strange for weeks and we don't understand why. Quite honestly, Syd, we should have studied your powers much sooner. But David and Oliver and— Well. A lot of things fell by the wayside." He turns to Ptonomy. “Could you ask Lenny to wake the Davids up and bring them here?”

They run her through the scans, then she gets a trip through the MRI. By the time that’s done, Lenny and David have arrived. Dvd and Divad are with them, and once again Syd is stuck listening to a fraction of the conversation. Her next set of transcripts can’t come soon enough. 

David gets scanned next, and then the same tests are run with Dvd and then Divad in their body. One of the research team brings in snacks during all this, and Syd nibbles at her food as she watches. 

Finally it's her turn again. She sits in the exam chair for the soul tests. Divad stays embodied and sits with Cary, eager to help. 

Amy brings Matilda over, and Kerry gives her a scritch. "Such a good kitty," Kerry coos. "Now hold still." She slides some kind of netting over Matilda's head. It has wires attached to it, leading to the the same kind of machine that Syd is hooked up to.

"We thought we'd start with Matilda," Cary explains. "You said the process is identical with her as it is with humans?"

"With humans," Syd says. "With mutants, it's— It can be more powerful."

Cary gives a thoughtful hum. "Your interactions with David. Quite explosive, as I recall."

That's an understatement. Touching him sent them both flying, shattered glass, knocked bystanders off their feet. That's the main reason she's avoided swapping with mutants ever since. "It wasn't so bad with Walter, but— Kerry, I know you're eager to figure this out, but I don't want to hurt you."

"I can handle a little explosion," Kerry says, confidently. 

"At what proximity do you start to feel the needles?" Cary asks.

"It has to be pretty close," Syd says. "Almost touching. But I keep a bigger distance for safety. Sudden movements, accidental bumps—"

"Sensible," Cary says, and types some more. "Okay. Let's start with Matilda. Keep the glove on and hold out your hand."

Syd holds out her hand as Amy slowly brings Matilda closer, pausing so Cary can collect his data. And then finally she's almost close enough to touch. "The needles started," she reports. 

"Gradual or instant?" Cary asks.

"Gradual," Syd says. "It's stronger as we get closer."

Amy closes the last distance, and Matilda is flush against Syd's hand. Syd's palm prickles as her powers ready for the swap such closeness should trigger. But the lack of skin contact prevents that. She pets Matilda, and Matilda sniffs at her, curious but calm.

"Okay," Cary says, after some extensive typing. "Let's try it with the glove off."

They repeat the same test, then trigger the swap. Syd feels the familiar pull, the disorientation, and then— She's in Amy's arms and sees her body looking around in confusion.

"Kerry, give Matilda a treat," Cary says, and Kerry holds out a tray with a piece of chicken breast. Matilda sniffs it, then eats it, face first and open-mouthed. 

"You don't feel the needles while your powers are activated, yes?" Cary asks. 

"Mmyes," Syd meows. It took practice to simulate human speech with a cat's mouth and tongue, but she can do a passable job. Amy pets her back and Syd involuntarily purrs. It always takes effort to resist the instincts in the bodies she enters. Kerry pets Matilda's head, and Matilda rubs against her hand, trying to mark it.

"Very interesting," Cary murmurs, and peers at his screen, types some more. "Kerry, step away. Syd, go ahead and switch back."

Amy puts Syd down. Syd stops fighting the pull to return to her body, and in a blink— She tastes chicken. 

"Good girl," Amy coos. She picks Matilda up from the chair and feeds her a much smaller piece of chicken.

They repeat the tests a few times, then it's time for the next step. 

"Doctor Orwell," Syd greets.

"Syd," Doctor Orwell greets back. "Holding up okay?"

"I'm used to practicing with Matilda," Syd says. "Are you ready?"

"Extremely," Doctor Orwell says, grinning. She's Cary's second-in-command, not counting Kerry, and has always been very enthusiastic about studying mutants. Syd tries not to find that slightly alarming, given Division 3's history. Cary wouldn't trust her if she was looking to exploit and kill mutants instead of helping them.

When they touch, the switch is as effortless as it is with Matilda. Syd sees her own body staring in astonishment. 

"How does it feel, Doctor Orwell?" Cary prompts.

"So strange," Doctor Orwell says. She touches her body, Syd's body, and then realizes. "Oh, excuse me," she tells Syd. "I didn't mean to—"

"It's all right," Syd says, hearing the different timbre of her voice. "It's what everybody does. It's not really my body."

"Do you feel like Syd?" Kerry asks Doctor Orwell.

"I don't know," Doctor Orwell says. "I've never experienced a different body before. It's very— Subjective."

"How long can you hold this?" Cary asks.

"I can hold a swap for hours," Syd offers. "I think the longest I've done was— Six?"

"I don't think we can spare that long right now," Cary says, sounding disappointed. "What happens if you touch your original body?"

They try. Nothing happens. "No needles," Syd reports.

"Fascinating," Cary says, peering at his screen. "Your brainwave patterns follow the swap, as expected. But the other readings stay the same." He types. "We need to do an MRI with this later to be sure, but it seems like— Your powers somehow isolate the occupying mind so that it doesn't integrate into the host body as a parasitic mind would. Your feeling that your body isn't entirely yours— Is that something you feel all the time, or only during swaps?"

"It's strongest when I'm using my powers," Syd says. "But it never completely goes away."

"That must be very difficult," Ptonomy says. 

Syd shrugs and feels the pull of someone else's muscles. "I don't know how I'd feel without it." She thinks— It probably helped her survive the complete lack of touch she had growing up. She read that the absence of touch can actually kill infants. Even though her powers caused that problem, they must have also protected her.

When they finish with Doctor Orwell, Kerry asks her, "Do you feel like Syd now? David felt like Syd for weeks."

Doctor Orwell closes her eyes, concentrating on her body. "I just feel like myself."

"Good," Kerry says, relieved. "I mean, no offense, but— Things are already confusing enough," she tells Syd. 

"I wonder why David felt differently," Cary ponders. "Perhaps because he's a mutant? It could still be an issue for us."

"We don't have to do this now," Syd offers again. 

"We'll be all right," Cary assures her. "It's time we figured this out. And it will give me some very useful data." He turns to Divad. "Can you take over?"

“Got it," Divad says, and takes his seat.

Cary and Kerry put on their own sensors now, and any equipment that isn't needed is moved to a safe distance. Everyone else moves back, too.

"I'll go first," Cary insists, over Kerry's objection. "Same process as before."

Cary holds out his hand, and Syd slowly brings her own up to it. When she pauses at the point where the needles should start, she frowns, disconcerted.

"What's wrong?" Cary asks.

"I'm not—" Syd starts, then— She brings her gloved hand to Cary's. She grips it. "I don't feel any needles."

Cary and Kerry stare at each other. Cary stares at Syd. "Last year," he asks, disturbed. "When you touched Kerry—"

"I wasn't conscious," Syd says. "Farouk took control. No one swapped bodies, he just— Hopped through us."

"Take off your glove," Cary demands. "Swap with me."

Syd takes off her glove and— Touches Cary's hand. Nothing happens. "Jesus," she whispers. He's not an android, how is this— 

"Dear god," Cary murmurs. He's gone pale. He reaches up and touches Syd's bare upper arm. He touches her face. Nothing happens. "What does this mean?" he asks, desperate.

"Let me try," Kerry insists. 

"Glove first," Cary says, but Kerry's already reaching out. Syd feels the needles the moment before Kerry's hand touches her arm, and then—

It's like David. The contact shock knocks them all off their feet, and Syd ends up on her back, dazed. She feels— A female body. Kerry's. She sits up and sees Cary and her own body are both unconscious. She crawls over to her body and shakes it. "Kerry?" she calls.

Kerry stirs and moans. "Whoa," she says, opening her eyes. "That was wild. Cary, are you okay?"

"Cary," Divad calls, concerned. He's kneeling beside Cary. "He's not breathing!"

The research team rushes over, emergency equipment in hand. Ptonomy pulls Divad back, and Divad stares, distraught. 

"What's going on?" Kerry asks, worried. She tries to force her way into the huddle but Syd pulls her back. Kerry's body is remarkably strong. "Let me go!" Kerry demands, struggling.

"Let them help him," Syd says. 

"You don't understand!" Kerry says. "If he's hurt, I have to heal him! That's what he always did for me!"

"Let her," Ptonomy says, and Syd reverses the swap.

Kerry rushes to Cary's side. She lays down over him, but— Nothing happens. Kerry tries to force him into her, but _nothing happens._ She stares at Syd, betrayed. "You broke us! You killed him!"

"No," Syd breathes, horrified. She looks to the others for help. Amy pulls Kerry back and the research team starts resuscitation. 

" _Cary!_ " Kerry sobs, inconsolable as Amy holds her tight.

Agonizing minutes pass. And then the researchers step back. One of them shakes his head.

Kerry _howls_ in agony, and Oliver cries out and grabs his head in pain.

Syd steps back, shaking her head, denying. Cary can't be dead. Cary can't be dead because of _her_.

"Cary," Oliver says, and Syd looks to see— He's crying. He wipes the tears away, but they keep coming. And then— "Cary?"

Kerry goes still. "Cary?"

"What's happening?" Divad asks.

"I hear him!" Kerry says, grinning through her tears. "Cary, I hear you! You're inside me again!" Her smile fades, and she reaches into herself. She searches around, looking for something, then stares at Cary's body on the floor. "Cary, we have to get your body back inside me. You got— You got pulled apart."

"Can we put him on life support?" Ptonomy asks.

"He'll be brain dead," Doctor Orwell says, distraught.

"His mind is safe," Ptonomy says. "We have to save his body. Do whatever it takes."

Doctor Orwell nods, and the research team gets back to work.


	116. Day 12: A sky full of stars.

Oliver's head is resounding with other people's emotions and thoughts, so much that it's hard to hear and feel his own. His own recovery is as important as David and Syd's, he knows that. Cary's always reminding him of that. But Ptonomy needs the relay to save the world.

Cary's body is lying empty now, hooked up to machines that keep its heart pumping, its lungs breathing. He's been disembodied like Ptonomy and Amy and Lenny, but his body isn't dead. His soul was ripped out of it like Melanie's, all connections broken.

He wonders if they'll have to freeze Cary, too.

Melanie. He remembers her smile in lamplight in a room in China. He wants to remember more about her, but— It still feels out of reach. He looks at pictures, he hears stories, but they're not enough. He's been wondering lately— Who he is. He's Oliver Anthony Bird, obviously, he always has been. And he helps people. That feels right. But the rest—

Cary wants him to be who he was, he wants the old Oliver back. That's what Melanie wanted, too. Oliver didn't know that then, but now he can make enough connections to recognize it. 

Maybe he just needs more time, more sleep, more memory therapy. All those things are helping, he can feel it. His body feels more like his body, more a part of him and not merely something he's inside. It's easier to remember new things and he feels less confused and adrift. But the more his detachment fades, the more he's aware that— There's very little left of who he used to be. Even if his old memories are still inside him— Will remembering them restore him? Or is he someone else now? And if so, who?

David has similar questions and thinks them endlessly. Oliver wonders if listening to David's self-questioning is causing his own. Listening to everyone's grief is certainly painful. He can't seem to stop the tears from leaking out of his eyes. It's all terribly absurd. He can't remember anything about the life he supposedly shared with Cary. All those stories are still just stories. It must be everyone else's grief that's making him cry. 

"One more for team 'ain't got no body'," Lenny sighs.

"Don't say that," Kerry says. "We're gonna fix him." 

Kerry's grief is the worst, though it's more tolerable now. The moment when she thought Cary was dead— Her pain was an explosion and Oliver still has a headache from it. David was lucky to be wearing the crown or that would have been a terrible blow. 

"We'll do everything we can," Ptonomy assures her.

"Then take the crown off the Davids and let them fix us," Kerry demands. 

"Not until we know more about what we're dealing with," Ptonomy says, firmly. "Rushing into things is what put us in this situation."

Kerry's guilt spikes, and her anger, and then her grief again. "I just wanted to know what we are."

"Everything we're dealing with is new," Ptonomy says. "We don't understand the soul or its relationship to mutant powers, or how your and Syd's powers actually work. What happened was a terrible accident. Even if we'd been more careful, the result probably would have been the same."

"He's right," Divad says. "It's not your fault or Syd's fault. Any more than— What happened in Clockworks was David or Syd's fault."

'I'm sensing a trend,' Syd thinks, unhappily. She's sitting as far away from everyone else as she can— Or she was until Lenny sat next to her, refusing to let her isolate. Syd pretended to be annoyed but she was grateful.

"Cary, how are you feeling?" Amy asks. She's been holding Kerry since they were allowed into the infirmary to sit with Cary's body.

'Alive,' Cary thinks, but he's very unhappy. Oliver's relaying for him now, too, and Oliver hopes no one else gets disembodied because he feels he's at his limit for how many minds he can focus on at once. 

Cary's been thinking a great many black thoughts since he woke up inside of Kerry without his body. Cary's thoughts have often been fearful since Oliver met him on the astral plane, but never this bad. Oliver finds his lack of hope— Concerning.

At least he's not dissociating. When he realized what had happened, he nearly did what he did yesterday, but everyone worked to coax him back. Cary doesn't want to stop existing any more than David does, but it's taking a great deal of effort for him to stay.

"Can't Cary just— Take charge?" David asks. 

"I don't know," Kerry says, at a loss. "I don't think so. We never—" Her chin wobbles. 

Divad stands up. "I have to look at the test results."

Kerry clings to Amy and cries. Amy hushes her. She looks up at Divad. "The test results can wait. This has been a terrible shock."

"What if we can fix them right now?" Divad presses. 

"Do you know how to safely put half a soul back into a physical projection of a mutant DID system?" Ptonomy challenges. 

Divad falters. "No, but—"

"Cary's mind is safely with Kerry, and his body is on life support," Ptonomy says. "If there's a way to reunite them, we'll find it. The research team is already looking over the data."

"I need to see it myself," Divad insists.

"You will," Ptonomy allows. "But the situation is stable and we have a lot of people helping us, good people. We have to trust them to do their job so we can do ours."

"Are you nuts?" Dvd says, angrily. "We can't just leave them like this!"

"And we can't risk making things worse," Ptonomy says. "We don't know what kind of damage there is. We don't have the tools to examine Cary and Kerry's soul or whatever connects their soul to their bodies. This all could have been much, much worse."

That sobers everyone, even Dvd.

"Okay," David says. "So what can we do?"

Ptonomy considers the question. "We've faced a lot of crises since this started. I know this is a bad one, but we have to do the same thing we've been doing. We have to keep doing the work." At the general air of dismay, Ptonomy continues. "I think Farouk realized something when he was inside Kerry. He saw that she was a physical projection."

"Melanie said one of us wasn't real," Kerry says, her eyes locked on Cary's body.

"That was the monster's truth," Ptonomy warns. "You're both real, just like Dvd and Divad are as real as David. You're a system like them, and your mutant powers need to be understood in that context. Cary, you used to believe Kerry hid inside you. Now we can look at that differently. Your powers didn't allow Kerry to hide, they gave her a way to come out."

'And now I'm trapped,' Cary thinks. 

"We'll get you out again," Ptonomy promises. "But it's probably going to take some time. And I'm sorry, but we have to remember the big picture."

'Yes, torturing me and Kerry is just a— An occasional hobby for Farouk,' Cary thinks, angrily. 'Sometimes I wish we'd never—'

He cuts himself off, but David, Divad, and Dvd all react anyway, guilt and anger coming off them in waves. 'Our fault his fault my fault' thoughts all happen at once, blurring together. 

"At least one of you got it right," Lenny says. 

"Sorry," Divad and David both say.

'I'm always right,' Dvd thinks. 'Fuck the shit beetle. When we get the crown off, we should kill him first, then fix Cary.'

'Keep thinking like that and Ptonomy's never gonna let us help,' Divad chides back. 

'Like he's gonna let us help anyway,' Dvd grumbles. 'This is bullshit.'

'Are they talking to each other again?' David thinks. 'I wish I could talk to Syd. I should have just— Let her keep the relay yesterday.'

'Syd is not getting the relay,' Dvd thinks.

'Would it really be that bad?' Divad asks. 'I want her to hear me, too.'

'Absolutely not,' Dvd thinks, angrily. 'Look what she did to Kerry!'

'That wasn't her fault,' Divad chides. 'They asked her to do this, they touched her. How is it her fault?'

'Don't get all logical at me,' Dvd says, annoyed. 'If Syd wasn't around—'

'What?' Divad prods. 'If Syd wasn't around, we'd still be drooling it up on insane amounts of Haldol. Or worse. God knows what Farouk would have done to us.'

'I would've stopped him,' Dvd insists.

Divad scoffs. 'Spare me your delusions of grandeur.'

"All right, break it up," Ptonomy warns. 

'I knew they were talking,' David thinks. "Can you two please stop hiding your conversations from me?"

'Not if we don't have to,' Dvd thinks.

"I'm sorry," Divad says. "Force of habit." 'I agree with you, David, we should let Syd have the relay,' he thinks.

"Absolutely not," Dvd says.

'She helped us yesterday,' Divad points out. ‘All of us.’

"I'm the one who keeps David safe, even when he can't," Dvd declares. "I know what he needs, and he is absolutely not ready to let Syd crawl back into our head no matter what he says!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," David mutters.

"Hey, what did you say yesterday?" Dvd says. "You need to process what she did to us. Have you done that yet? Did you have time to even think about all that? No, because Syd blew up Cary!"

Divad sighs. 'He's got a point.'

"So let's just— Rip the bandaid off," David says. "Ptonomy, can we please just— Get this done?"

Ptonomy considers it. "Okay. We'll have a session so we can talk about what happened, see where you're at. I'm glad you're motivated, but we need to be careful or we'll end up with another crisis."

"You're right.” David sighs. “You're right." 

"Syd, how are you doing?" Ptonomy asks.

"Um, not great," Syd admits. "I'm sorry, I know you wanted to work with me first, but—"

"It's okay," Ptonomy says. He looks around, taking stock. "Oliver? You're still crying."

"I am?" Oliver touches his cheek. It's wet. "Oh. My apologizes."

"I think you need a break from the relay," Ptonomy says. "I don't need it to talk to David, and Syd's not in any shape for therapy right now."

"What about Cary?" Kerry asks.

"You can relay for Cary," Ptonomy says. "Or maybe you two should try doing what the Davids do. See if Cary can speak for himself."

"I dunno," Kerry says, uncertain. "That's— Not really how we work."

"It's Cary," Divad says. "You trust him, don't you?"

"Of course," Kerry insists. "I mean— I always felt like his body was my body. And now I guess— My body is his body, but— I dunno."

"Let's divide and conquer," Ptonomy says. "I think Syd needs a break, too. Lenny, can you take her for a walk, maybe some fresh air?"

"Aye aye, Cap'n," Lenny says, and turns to Syd. "Hey, we can get you some actual breakfast."

"I'll take the Davids," Ptonomy says. "Amy, are you okay with Kerry, Cary, and Oliver?"

"We'll be fine," Amy says. "Kerry, would you like breakfast, too?"

"'m not hungry," Kerry pouts.

"Oliver, are you hungry?" Amy asks.

"I'm—" Oliver pauses, thinks. It's been so hard to tell how he feels under everyone else's grief. Now that they're calming down— 

"You don't have to relay right now," Ptonomy reminds him. "Take a break, okay? You had a shock, too."

Oliver stops relaying and feels a sharp sense of relief, but also— Something else. A kind of pressure in his chest. He wipes at his face again. The tears won't stop, he doesn't understand it.

"I don't—" he tries, looking to Ptonomy for help. "I feel—"

"Sad?" Ptonomy suggests, gently. "Tears usually mean you're sad."

Everyone's focused on Oliver now, wondering what's wrong with him, if he's okay. Oliver wants to say he's fine, except— It wouldn't be the truth. He doesn't feel fine at all.

"Cary's going to be okay," Ptonomy promises. "But we had a bad scare. It's natural for that to bring up a lot of feelings and memories. Let yourself experience them, reconnect with them. Take them back."

"What’s to be done about death?" Oliver asks. "Nothing, nothing. Death is the shadow cast by Rockefeller Center over your intimate street."

"A memory?" Ptonomy prompts. "From China? A lot of people died there."

Oliver shakes his head. Whatever he's feeling, it's not from then. It feels— Later? Is later a feeling? For so long there was only now, the past nothing but a blank fog, the future only— More of the same sameness, repeated forever and never, for how can a thing hope to repeat if you can't remember it happened?

"One funeral a year," Oliver finds himself continuing. "Forty's only half a life to have filled."

"Cary?" Ptonomy calls, turning to Kerry. "Does any of this make sense to you?"

'Um, uh—' Cary thinks. 'Perhaps— It's related to Summerland? We lost so many people to the war.'

"Cary says it might be about the war," Kerry relays. "A lot of people died."

"They did," Ptonomy says, soberly. "Rudy was the last, but— This is an old memory. At least twenty-two years old, right? So what happened at the beginning?"

'Oliver and Melanie recruited us,' Cary thinks, and Kerry relays. 'The early days were— Wonderful. When Summerland was ready, we started traveling, rescuing mutants, bringing them to safety. Helping them heal so they could help others. But— The Divisions were hunting mutants, too. They didn't know what we were, they thought— We were like them. We couldn't risk them finding out the truth. Oliver protected all of us, erased our existence from thousands of minds, helped us create— Defenses around Summerland. What was meant to be the start of a new world became— Our only refuge. A psychic fortress.'

"But Division 3 found us," Divad says.

'Your system is so powerful that— Oliver's old defenses couldn't shield you,' Cary thinks, and Kerry relays. 'Until you, Summerland was never breached. But the world wasn't safe for mutants. There were so many we tried to save, so many who— Fell in the attempt of saving their own kind. The Divisions were— Absolutely ruthless. Genocidal. It was— A very hard time for all of us. That's when Oliver started to spend more and more time on the astral plane, seeking— Relief, I suppose. It was bad for all of us, but— Oliver must have heard— Thousands of mutant minds snuffed out.'

"Oh no," Amy gasps, softly. "Oliver, I'm so sorry."

"Now I have built my love a sepulchre of whitened thoughts, and sat a year in ash," Oliver recites, the pain in his chest growing greater. He doesn't want this feeling, but it's impossible to resist it. "Grieving for the lost entempled dead. Bigger and bigger gates, thou givest Lord, and vaster deaths."

"Oliver," Ptonomy says, concerned. "If Cary's right, this is a very bad memory. If you're not ready for it, let it go. You lost yourself to escape it before. We don't want to lose you again."

Oliver tries, but— Fragments of memory flash before his eyes, like they did for China. But this time it's not rain and coffee but a sky full of stars, bright and beautiful and then snuffed out, one by one. Too fast to save but a few, though he tries to warn them all. So many of them don't understand, don't believe. Often they're too young, babies murdered in their cribs, children taken and slaughtered. A sob bursts from Oliver's chest.

Kerry gets up and goes to him. "Oliver," she says, and Cary thinks. She sits in his lap and hugs him tight. "It's okay now," she tells him. "The war's over. We stopped it, okay? David helped us stop it. And that means you helped us stop it because you helped David. It's over."

"It's over?" Oliver asks, uncertain. 

'It's over,' Cary thinks. 'I don't know how much you remember, maybe you shouldn't ever remember all of that, but— Remember that we stopped it. It took a long time but we stopped it.'

"This place," Oliver says, with slow realization. "It's— Them. The Divisions. Why are we here?"

'Because they lost,' Cary thinks, with pride. 'They lost and we won, and now we have what you always wanted, Oliver. We have the power to change the world. They have to listen to us, after all these years.'

Oliver wants that to be enough. A happy ending, mutantkind finally safe. But the flashes keep coming. Not just distant minds, but patients, friends. So much death and pain.

And Cary. Cary beside him and Melanie, grieving with them. Cary. His best friend. _Cary_.

"Cary," Oliver says, astonished. "Cary, I— I remember you."

'Oliver,' Cary thinks, full of emotions, grief, joy, relief. ' _Thank god_. Please, please keep remembering.'

Oliver holds on to them, clings to them as the tide of memories threatens to sweep him away. He sobs and the tears keep falling.


	117. Day 12: It's not torture.

Oliver _remembers_. He remembers Cary and Melanie and— David's not sure what else, exactly, but— Just like that, a huge chunk of his life came back to him. The memories were inside him, waiting. He'd finally healed enough to connect with them again, and all he needed was a strong enough reminder. 

Cary's disembodiment was a hell of a reminder.

David's trying his best to not be agonizingly jealous. Oliver’s devastated from remembering all that. When Oliver got lost, David was only what, nine years old? And that was apparently the worst of the war, when the Divisions were— Slaughtering mutants—

It's hard for David to even imagine that kind of— What kind of monsters would _do_ that? There's no other word for it but evil. Is it worse than Farouk's evil? It feels worse. 

"How are you feeling?" Ptonomy asks, from the other side of the picnic table. 

After everything that happened, Ptonomy thought the garden might be a helpful setting for their session. And Oliver— Oliver's not going to be relaying for a while. David already misses the relay.

"Hey, you've still got us," Dvd says, from the bench he and Divad are sharing. "We've always heard your thoughts. It's how we helped you."

"Maybe don't bring that up," Divad mutters. 

Dvd starts to protest, then thinks better of it. 

David stares down at his latest round of foundation work and tries to focus. "Um." He rubs his face. "To be honest— Not great."

"This was a few shocks for all of us," Ptonomy says. "I know you wanted to get started on Syd, but I think we need to talk about how you're feeling before we do anything else."

"You're right," David says. He looks out at the city, the bright sunshine, the bustling streets. His chest hurts, a dull ache he can't get rid of.

"I can't hear what you're thinking, so let's do this the old-fashioned way," Ptonomy says. "Is this about Cary losing his body? Or Oliver remembering?"

"Oliver," David admits. "Those must have been— Oliver's worst memories."

"Probably," Ptonomy agrees. "His most powerful memories are coming back first. The traumatic thoughts of his patients. Falling in love with Melanie. Watching people he cared about suffer and die. Their deaths are probably what drove him to spend too much time on the astral plane, to escape all that pain. So in a way— They're the last memories he made before he became disembodied himself."

David remembers Kerry's wail of grief. He doesn't think he'll ever forget that, or the sight of Cary's lifeless body. Those memories feel burned into him, into his soul. Whatever the soul is.

"I want to remember," David admits. "I mean, obviously, but— If it helped Oliver to get his worst memories back—"

"Oliver's situation isn't the same as yours," Ptonomy says. "And his worst memories were— Grief over people he couldn't save. You were tortured."

"I know," David sighs. 

"We can't control how Oliver's memories come back," Ptonomy continues. "We just have to take them as they come. With you we can target specific memories. Remember the matching jigsaw puzzle sets?"

David nods. "But when?"

"When you're ready," Ptonomy says. "The truth is, you're the one who's going to tell us when you genuinely need to recover a specific memory. Not just the general desire to remember, but when you hit one of those roadblocks we used to run into."

"I guess we haven't had one in a while," David realizes. 

"You're doing really well, David," Ptonomy says, warmly. "You know, the goal of trauma therapy isn't to somehow— Put us back to what we used to be. It's to make the good moments longer and the bad moments shorter. Cary and Oliver aside— Are you feeling that?"

"I am," David says, recognizing that it's true. He thinks about yesterday, about last night. Fixing his lamp with his system. That's a powerful memory, too, one he wants to hold on to. "This morning, when Lenny woke us up— I felt— Good. Safe. It was—" He pauses. "I'm not used to waking up feeling that way. The, uh— The nightmares."

"We never really talked about those," Ptonomy says. "Would you like to talk about them now?"

David looks out at the city again. "They've always been— Mostly fear. The, um— The mask Farouk used, I called it the Devil with the Yellow Eyes. It was, uh. Sort of a man. Bald and fat with these— Spindly arms."

"We saw him," Ptonomy says, to David's surprise. "On the surveillance footage. Division 3 used a psychic filter. That's how we knew you were possessed."

"Could I— Could I see it?" David asks. He only has his memories, which— The ones he has from before they got Farouk out are hardly trustworthy. 

"Of course," Ptonomy says. "I'll bring it up for you when we get back to the lab. I know you talked about the Devil with the Yellow Eyes with Doctor Poole."

"I thought I was crazy," David says, feeling the pull of those old feelings. "I saw it when I was— Tired or drunk or high, and— I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to be sober." He thinks of Benny, of all the things Divad told him about the real Benny. It's still hard to— Take all that in. "The um. The Benny stuff. It feels like— I don't know."

"Yesterday, you said you apologized to yourself for what happened."

"I did," David says. He's not sure if he feels ready to forgive himself, but— "I guess— It feels like it happened to someone else. I know it was me, but— Benny's gone and Amy and Philly didn't know, and—" He takes a breath to calm himself. 

"You want confirmation," Ptonomy guesses. "Evidence. Proof that it was real."

"I do," David admits. "I've been— There are things that— That help me. That make my past feel— Not just real, but _mine_. And with this—"

"Farouk took a lot," Ptonomy says. "But he did leave some things, even though he completely erased Benny."

David tries to engage with all of that, to find a way to— Move forward. But— "Can we— Go back to the nightmares?"

"Of course," Ptonomy says. "But before we do— Those years with Benny are a good candidate for memory work."

"But Benny's gone." In every sense of the word.

"He is," Ptonomy agrees. "We can't use the tank, for example, because as far as we can tell there's nothing to recover. But Divad and Dvd remember. They could show you their memories of Benny in the white room."

David stares at Ptonomy, then turns and stares at his headmates.

"Shit," Dvd mutters. Divad elbows him.

"We can do that," Divad says. "If that's what you need."

"Are you sure?" David asks. He doesn't want to hurt them.

Divad considers the question. "Maybe it'll be good for us, too. We can face it together. Get some closure."

“What did they say?” Ptonomy asks.

“Yes,” David relays. The thought of seeing all that—

"Why don't you add it to your therapy list?" Ptonomy suggests. "David, I'd like you to start to really focus on your therapy goals. What do you want to make progress on? What will help you be the person you want to be, and have the relationships you want to have?"

David looks at his therapy list. A lot of it is— Long term. He has no idea how long it'll take for him to build his new self. And looking over it again— "I guess these are— Kind of abstract?"

"Let's call them high level," Ptonomy suggests. "It's good to have them, but it would also be helpful to think about your immediate goals. I think you're ready for that now. You already have two things, so how about starting a list?"

"So like— Long term and short term?" David asks, considering. He chews on his lower lip as he re-reads the list again. He tries to imagine crossing off any of the items, and— Somehow that feels wrong. Most of the items are— Things he needs to remember to do for the rest of his life. They'll never be done. "Maybe a new list?"

"If that feels right," Ptonomy says. 

"Like a— to-do list," David says, and starts a new section. _To-do_ , he writes, feeling— Simpler is better. What does he want to get done?

_See the Devil with the Yellow Eyes  
Process relationship with Syd  
Share relay with Syd  
Memory work for Benny (white room)  
Possession trauma  
Share our body together  
Finish fixing the rocket lamp  
Recover suppressed memories_

He shows Ptonomy the list.

"Very nice," Ptonomy praises. "Keep adding to it. This is your therapy, David. You have the right to decide what you want and need from it."

David hears the flutter of paper and looks over to see Divad and Dvd both writing in their notebooks. David can't help but smile, seeing them copying him, pushing themselves forward. He's really proud of them.

They both pause. They look up and smile back at him. David's smile becomes a grin.

"What's that for?" Ptonomy asks.

"Um, Divad and Dvd are, uh, making their own to-do lists," David says. "It's really— Nice, doing this together. You're right, it— It's really helping."

"I'm really glad to hear that," Ptonomy says, smiling too.

David reads over the new list again, then again. This is his therapy. It's not— Something happening to him that he has to endure. It's something he's choosing to do to help himself heal.

It's not torture. 

"It's not torture," he says, amazed. "Therapy. It was always— But this—" He grips his notebook. "This isn't." The foundation work, it's— 

Good moments longer and bad moments shorter.

He goes back to his therapy list and adds that. _Make good moments longer and bad moments shorter._

"My foundation work's going to start needing two pages," David jokes. Especially since he has to fit in all those NOs at the end.

"You should be proud of that," Ptonomy says. "You built that, David. We all helped but you built it, you made it yours."

David thinks back over all the moments that added to his foundation work. Lenny and Syd's lists. Ptonomy's guidance. And his foundation and mantra—

Cary gave him those. At the start, it was Cary.

"Do you think— We'll find a way to help Cary?" David asks, hopeful. 

"I don't think any of us are going to give up on him," Ptonomy says, certain. "Cary's helped a lot of people over the years, and he's never asked for anything in return. He just wanted to help us heal. So we're going to do everything we can to return the favor."

David nods. Then he adds, _Help Cary heal_ to his to-do list. He takes a deep breath, lets it out.

"My nightmares," he says, not wanting to leave the thought unfinished. "Do you think they'll ever stop?"

"With time, yes," Ptonomy says. "Dreams are our mind's way of processing our experiences. Getting closure, forgiveness, resolution for your trauma should help a lot." He pauses, considering something. Then he gives David a serious look. "David. You're aware that— The nightmares you’ve experienced— Farouk created or manipulated them."

"He used to," David says. "But he's out now."

"Shit," Dvd mutters, and Divad elbows him again. Dvd elbows him back.

David has a sinking feeling. It's unpleasantly familiar. "This is one of those things you didn't want to tell me, right?" He thought they were done with those, but of course there's more. His life is a bottomless pit of awful things people don't want to tell him.

Ptonomy considers the question. "Let's call it— One of the things you didn't want to tell yourself."

David raises his eyebrows.

"Farouk doesn't need to be inside you to affect your dreams," Ptonomy reminds him. "He entered your dreams to blackmail you into not killing yourself. You didn't want to think about that, right?"

Shit. "Right," David sighs. He really didn't want to think about it. 

"You know Farouk has been trying to get back inside you," Ptonomy continues. "Dvd and Divad have been doing everything they can to keep your system safe. But we need sleep and dreams to be healthy. There's no way around that, any more than— The need for air, food, water."

"So you have to let me dream," David says. "And Farouk can get to me through my dreams."

"He can," Ptonomy admits. "And if we let you remember what he does to you, he could sabotage your therapy. But if you can't remember the dreams, in some sense— They never happened."

"So every night, Farouk goes into my head and tortures me," David says, incredibly unhappy. "And there's nothing we can do to stop it."

"There absolutely is," Ptonomy says. "We can stop Farouk."

"Right," David says, and rubs at his face. He closes his eyes, tries to process this. They're right, he already knew this could happen. But he didn't want to face it and— He was a brittle disaster, barely able to handle existing, much less— Going to sleep at night with the knowledge he was basically handing himself over to the shit beetle to be tortured. _God._ "What's he doing to me?"

"We have no way to know," Ptonomy says. "Letting you remember your dreams isn't an option. It's incredibly hard to heal when you're being tortured. That's why despite all the work you did before this, you never got better. It wasn't just the misdiagnosis. This progress you're making now, you can do that because we found a way to keep you safe."

"I don't feel safe now," David admits.

"I know," Ptonomy says. "But you need the truth, and I think you're strong enough to face it. Divad and Dvd have been facing it all this time. They're doing the work even though they're scared because they know it's our best shot."

David looks at his headmates again. They look back, apologetic but— Determined. 

David rests his elbows on the table, his face in his hands. He didn't want to think about Farouk having a way back into his head, he really didn't. But everyone else had to face it, to find a way to keep him— As safe as they could. 

"Okay," David says, and straightens up.

"Okay?" Ptonomy asks.

"I'm not happy about it," David admits. "And frankly it's a good thing you guys can just make my brain go to sleep because I will not be able to close my eyes tonight without help. But whatever he's doing to me— I don't want it. If this is the only way we can stop him, then— Okay."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, accepting. "You handled that very well, by the way. You should be proud of that."

David musters half a smile, briefly.

"That was a lot," Ptonomy says. "Take a moment. Check in with yourself."

David does. He takes some slow breaths, steadying himself. He mentally recites his foundation and mantra. 

"Would you like to talk more about the nightmares?" Ptonomy asks. "About what's in the ones you do remember?"

"Not right now," David says. He doesn’t feel up to that anymore. 

"That's fine," Ptonomy says. "Maybe put it in your to-do list?"

That's a good idea. David does it. It helps him feel— More in control, to have the to-do list. To see all the specific things he needs to work on, even if he can't work on them right away. "This is really helpful," he says, wanting Ptonomy to know. "I feel more in control."

“That’s what we want,” Ptonomy praises. “So looking at that list, what do you want to work on next?”

David thinks about that. He still wants to get to his Syd trauma, but— He needs a break first. He needs touch. “I know we usually— Could I take a break to be with Divad?”

At the request, Divad perks up and Dvd wilts. David feels a pang of guilt, but— He hasn’t processed his relationship with Dvd any more than he has his relationship with Syd. 

He adds _process relationship with Dvd_ to his to-do list. Then after a pause he adds _process relationship with Benny_ , and then after another pause, _process relationship with Philly_. 

He wonders if he should add Divad, but— It doesn’t feel necessary right now. If that changes he can just add it later. 

“I think that's a good idea," Ptonomy says. "Until Oliver's feeling better, we're going to have to handle things a little differently. I don't want any part of your system to be isolated from us for too long. Are the three of you comfortable taking short turns?"

"I'm good," Divad says.

"It's fine," Dvd shrugs.

"We can handle it," David relays. He needs to get used to sharing their body. He's not ready to share it together, but— Maybe this will help him take another step closer. 

"We'll try to keep it balanced," Ptonomy says. "But David, that's a big list. And I don't want you to have to depend entirely on Divad for your recovery periods, that's not good for him or you. So you're probably going to need more embodiment time today than your headmates. Are they okay with that?"

David looks, and they both nod. "Yeah," David relays. "We're, uh— Not going to try to get all of this done today, are we?"

"No," Ptonomy says, mildly amused. "But I'd like us to do as much as we can."

"Me too," David admits. "Okay. Could you, um, keep our body steady?"

Ptonomy gets up and holds David, bracing his body and head. David steps out, takes his usual moment to enjoy the relief of being a mental projection, and goes over to his headmates. 

"Your turn," David says to Dvd, apologetic.

Dvd gives a long-suffering sigh and trudges over to their body. 

David sits close to Divad, and Divad puts an arm around his back, offers his other hand for David to take. David takes it, gives it a squeeze. He needed this.

"This'll be good for him," Divad says, and squeezes back.


	118. Day 12: He's not used to talking about his feelings.

"How are you feeling, Dvd?" Ptonomy asks, from the other side of the picnic table. 

"Fine," Dvd says, staring Ptonomy down. It's a lie but Ptonomy doesn't know that. With Oliver down, Dvd can think whatever he wants and no one will know. That’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. 

Ugh, no one except the shit beetle. God he hates this crown. 

"You had a tough day yesterday," Ptonony continues. "I'd like us to work together to make today a little better for you."

Dvd narrows their eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means what I said," Ptonomy says, unruffled. "I know you and Divad were paying close attention to what David just did. Now it's your turn. What do you want to make progress on? What will help you be the person you want to be, and have the relationships you want to have? What will help you make the good moments longer and the bad ones shorter?"

Dvd doesn't know how to answer any of that. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says, when Dvd doesn't reply. "How about you show me your foundation work?" 

He slides a notebook over to him. Dvd looks at it warily. It has his name written on the front: Dvd Haller.

It's still weird to have a last name.

"Your physical notebook, remember?" Ptonomy says. "Just like David has, and there's one for Divad, too. Go ahead, open it up."

Dvd reluctantly flips it open. It's blank, of course. Not that his mental notebook is much better. Dvd resigns himself to having to write out his foundation work, even though he doesn't want Ptonomy to see how pathetic it is. All of this is so humiliating. David might not think therapy is torture anymore, but it's still torture for Dvd.

He starts writing, pushing through to get it done as fast as he can, his letters coming out hard and angular. Foundation, mantra, love advice— Shit, still nothing for his wish list. He leaves it empty and writes the therapy list, and then the new to-do list. He and Divad both moved the last items from their therapy lists to their to-do lists, so at least Dvd has one thing for that.

He slides the notebook back to Ptonomy and waits.

"Think about my future," Ptonomy reads, echoing the last line. He slides the notebook back. "You're doing a great job, Dvd. You should be proud of this."

It's not the reaction Dvd expected. "Is that a joke?" he asks, suspicious.

"Absolutely not," Ptonomy assures him. "I know how hard this is for you. But you're a very brave and determined person, just like your headmates. You refuse to let your fear and pain win. I know David and Divad are both proud of you for that."

Dvd looks over at them, uncertain. They're sitting together, all snuggled up, and Dvd is painfully jealous.

"We are," Divad says, certain. 

"We're really proud of you," David adds, and gives him an encouraging smile.

Dvd musters half a smile back, then looks back down at his notebook, feeling suddenly overcome. He's not used to— Being the one who needs help. It's always been his job to help David, to defend and protect him. And now—

"Would you like to talk about what happened this morning?" Ptonomy asks.

Dvd hesitates, shrugs. He's definitely not used to talking about his feelings, or even accepting that he has them— At least any feelings besides anger at the shit beetle and Divad, and love for David. Those were the only feelings he needed. Everything else—

"It must have been scary, seeing Kerry and Cary get hurt," Ptonomy says. "You haven't let yourself get close to many people. I know they mean a lot to you."

Dvd gives a short nod. 

"It must have been very hard for you to not be able to help them," Ptonomy continues. "And it's still hard, right? You just want to help them get better."

Dvd nods again. He swallows, looks away. Their chest hurts, but— Dvd isn't sure if it hurts because of his own feelings, or because of his headmates. Divad was the one in their body when it happened, and David—

David hurt so much, watching all of that. 

Ptonomy gives Dvd a considering look. "Dvd, I want you to do something. Not for me, but for yourself. I want you to allow your headmates to hear your thoughts."

"No," Dvd says, automatically.

"I can see that you're in pain," Ptonomy says, gently. "And I know opening up is very hard for you."

"I don't need help," Dvd lies. “And I'm not gonna make David worse.”

"Do you think your thoughts will hurt David?" Ptonomy asks. "Is that why you didn't want to share your thoughts with him earlier?"

Damn it. Ptonomy must have heard that before Oliver stopped relaying. "I don't think, I _know_."

"Then how about just Divad?" Ptonomy tries. "Divad, would you be willing to help Dvd with his thoughts?"

"Absolutely," Divad says. "I want to help."

"I bet you do," Dvd mutters. "I don't need his help, I don't need anyone's help," he tells Ptonomy, firmly.

Ptonomy considers him again. "You know, you and Divad really helped Lenny yesterday. Getting her started on her foundation work, helping her move past Benny. You two did it together, but you're the one who made that happen."

Dvd shrugs. "It's my job to keep us safe."

"How did helping Lenny protect us?" Ptonomy asks.

"Because—" Dvd falters as he realizes where this is going. "Look, I just wanted to make sure we made up with Lenny like we're making up with Amy and Syd. She was a hole in our defenses."

"Because love is one of Farouk's weapons," Ptonomy says. "And your system loves Lenny."

Dvd shrugs again. 

"How do you feel about Lenny, Dvd?" Ptonomy asks. 

"You already know," Dvd says. 

"I know how your system feels," Ptonomy says. "How do you feel? How do you, Dvd Haller, feel about Lenny Busker?"

Dvd sighs.

"It's hard for you to think that way," Ptonomy says. "To have your own individual wants and needs, your own feelings."

That's not how they worked, Dvd thinks. But he knows better than to say it. How they worked was— It was just more of the shit beetle's torture. Dvd's love for David was torture. Their eyes prickle again, but Dvd fights back the tears.

"Is that why you don't have anything for your wish list yet?" Ptonomy asks. "Because you don't know what you want?"

"No," Dvd says, annoyed. "I know what I want, I just—" 

"Just what?" Ptonomy prompts.

Dvd stares down at the empty wish list. 

"Do you think what you want is impossible?" Ptonomy asks. "Or do you think it's wrong?"

"Both," Dvd says, forcefully. 

"I'd like you to write it down anyway," Ptonomy says. "You left some room, right? Let's fill it in."

"I'm not gonna wish for something I can't have," Dvd says.

"Wishes don't have to be realistic," Ptonomy says. "This isn't about what you're supposed to want. It's about what you do want right now, in your heart. Even if you think what you want is wrong or impossible. Even if it scares you."

"I'm not scared," Dvd insists. 

"Prove it," Ptonomy challenges.

Dvd gives him a stubborn look and grabs his pen. Ptonomy wants his wish list? Fine, here it is. He shoves the notebook at Ptonomy and glares at him.

"'I want my system back,'" Ptonomy reads. "'I want my David back.' You think you can't have that?"

"Obviously," Dvd says. All of that is gone. Their system, his love for David— None of that should have ever happened in the first place.

"It must have hurt very much when you thought Cary was dead," Ptonomy says, gently. "Kerry's grief was— It knocked Oliver for a hell of a loop. But even without telepathy, we all felt it. We felt our own grief. And you felt David's."

Dvd swallows against the tightness in their throat. 

"Grief is a powerful emotion," Ptonomy continues. "And it's part of love. The more you love someone, the more it hurts to lose them. And you loved your David so much."

Tears prickle at their eyes and spill over. Dvd angrily wipes them away.

"Cary's disembodiment brought back a lot of painful memories for Oliver," Ptonomy says. "I think they did the same for you. Is that why you don't want Divad and David to hear your thoughts?"

Dvd gives a tight nod.

"Dvd," Divad says, concerned.

"Go," David urges, and Dvd looks to see Divad walking over.

"David needs you," Dvd insists.

"You need me too," Divad says.

It makes Dvd angry to see Divad being kind. It makes him furious. "Why the hell aren't you sad?" he challenges.

"I am," Divad says. 

"Not enough," Dvd insists. "We grieve David together. You should be grieving, too."

Divad's at a loss. He looks back at David, then at Dvd. "I guess— I don't need to grieve him anymore."

Dvd makes a choked, angry sound. This pain shouldn't just be his. It's not right, it's not _fair_. David was ripped away from both of them. They both endured a decade of torture as they tried desperately to get him back. And in the end—

Divad sits down next to him. "I miss him, too. So much," Divad admits. "But our David isn't gone. I saw that yesterday. All the Benny stuff— David really has always been David. I don't need to grieve him because— The person he was with us, he's still that person, no matter how many memories Farouk took away."

"He's not the same," Dvd insists.

"Do you really want him to be?" Divad challenges, but gently. "He was in so much pain all the time. We never wanted that for him. And now he's healing, he's getting better. I want to be with him for that and so do you."

Dvd can't deny that he does. 

"I know all that mattered was what he needed," Divad says. "But now he needs us to heal with him. He needs us to care about our own lives as much as his. That's what loving him means now. Not— living through him. Living beside him, with him."

"I don't want to let him go," Dvd says. Hot tears streak down their face.

"We don't have to," Divad says. "The things on your wish list— You already have them. But you have to— Let them have continuity."

Continuity. "What, they're the ship, too?" Dvd asks, warily.

"Yes," Divad says, certain. "We never stopped being a system, no matter how awful things got. And David never stopped being David. If you need to grieve for— Some fraction of what we used to be, that's okay. But don't love our pain more than you love the rest of us."

Dvd takes a sharp breath in. "That's not what I'm doing," he protests, even though—

Divad just looks at him, knowing.

"Dvd?" Ptonomy calls, concerned by his silence.

"Fuck you," Dvd says to Divad, but without heat. The tears have stopped, and he wipes their face dry. "Goddamn it. Were you saving that up, too?"

Divad gives a casual shrug. He's so pleased with himself, the smug asshole.

"You're really loving all this 'voice of reason' bullshit," Dvd sneers.

"Absolutely," Divad says, unashamed. "Look, you think I wanted to make us miserable? Of course not! I was just— Turned around. Now I'm pointed the right way. It's gonna be the same for you."

"What are you saying?" Dvd asks, warily.

"I don't know," Divad says. "Maybe— We can both love David the way we want to love him, as long as that means loving him the way he wants to be loved. And he has to know what will make us happy so he can love us back. Don't tell me you were ever happy before."

"I thought I was," Dvd mutters. 

"No," Divad says. "We were just— Not miserable. Like Lenny. And we weren't even that."

Dvd wishes he could argue. He's never listened to Divad and he isn't eager to start now. But— Nothing he's saying is _wrong_.

Dvd rubs their face. He looks at his notebook. "Fuck," he sighs, and grabs his pen. "Fuck fuck _fuck_."

He crosses out his wish list items. He puts 'Accept our continuity' to his to-do list, and 'figure out what makes me happy,' and then— 

He makes a new list. 'Things I Have'. He underlines the title, then writes underneath:  
_A system_  
_Divad_  
_David_  
_Myself_  
_Kerry_  
_Cary_  
_Amy_  
_Lenny_

He pauses, then adds:  
_Ptonomy_  
_Oliver_  
_Syd_

"Better?" Ptonomy asks, when Dvd is finished writing. 

Dvd nods.

"Could you catch me up?" Ptonomy asks.

Dvd huffs. Of all the times to not have the relay— "Divad said— I was loving David's pain more than I love David. That— I need to accept our continuity because I still have what I want."

"So you added that to you to-do list," Ptonomy says. 

"Yeah," Dvd says. "If I already have my system and David, then— they shouldn't be on my wish list. But—" He takes a steadying breath. "I need help remembering what I have. So I made a list, like— Like David does."

David's always rattling off all the people he loves when he's trying to make himself feel better. Maybe he doesn't need a written list because he feels their love so intensely, but— Dvd needs one. He needs to see it, to know that— Their love for him is something he's felt at least once.

"That was really smart," Ptonomy praises. "I mean it, Dvd. You realized what you needed and you made a tool to help you get it. That's fantastic work."

Dvd gives a reluctant smile. He's not used to being praised, but— It's definitely not terrible.

"It looks like you have a lot of good things on that list," Ptonomy says. "A lot of people who care about you. And you care about them, right?"

Dvd nods. "Our system cares about them."

"How do you feel?" Ptonomy presses.

Dvd hesitates again. "I don't know. I guess— I'm not really angry anymore, but—"

"You're not sure what you feel without the anger?" Ptonomy guesses.

Dvd nods.

"Just now, you wanted Divad to feel the same grief you did, at the same time," Ptonomy continues. "Even though you claimed a lot of your system's anger for yourself, for everything else— You're only really used to experiencing your feelings with your headmates."

"I guess," Dvd says. It's just— How they worked. 

"It's not surprising that it's so hard for you to engage with your emotions on your own," Ptonomy says. "I have some tools that can help you recognize and manage your emotions. One of them is to keep a journal of your feelings throughout the day. I can give you some worksheets when we get back to the lab. But the idea is simple. You start by checking in with yourself, like David does."

"Then what?" Dvd asks, warily.

"There's another tool you can use, it's called an emotion wheel. It’s like a color wheel. You look at all the different emotions and that will help you recognize which ones you're experiencing. Then you write down how you feel, emotionally and physically. Write down any ideas you have for why you're feeling that way. Then we can go over your feelings and talk about them."

"Sounds like a lot of work," Dvd says.

"It is," Ptonomy agrees. "But exercise is how we get strong. If you keep doing the work, you'll be able to recognize your feelings and manage your reactions. And that's on your therapy list, right?"

'That sounds really useful,' David thinks.

"We could all do it together," Divad offers. "Tell Ptonomy."

"Divad and David want to do the emotion things too," Dvd relays.

"I think that's an excellent idea," Ptonomy says. "In fact, I think it would be good for all of us."

"Doesn't that go against the whole— Feeling my emotions solo thing?" Dvd asks.

"Not at all," Ptonomy says. "Everyone will be feeling what they feel individually. But I think it'll be easier if we all do it together."

Dvd looks at Divad, at David. David looks better now, even though he's not holding anyone's hand. He thinks about Divad helping him with his foundation work yesterday, with his grief just now.

"Do you still, um— Think I should share my thoughts?" Dvd asks Ptonomy.

"I do," Ptonomy says. "I'd like Divad to share his thoughts, too. I think it will be good for all of you, for your relationships, for your progress as individuals and as a system."

"What if my thoughts hurt David?" Dvd presses.

"Then we'll deal with that, just like we've dealt with everything else," Ptonomy says. "David's pretty tough though, and he wants to help you get better. Give it a try, see how it goes. You can always stop if you need to, just like Oliver stopped."

That's true. With the relay involved, Dvd didn't have any control. But if he's the one choosing to share— 

He's starting to understand why David liked his last session so much. Dvd wants to be in control, too. To not have to live through David, but— To live with him. For being together to make them both happy. 

He really hopes he can make David happy.

David smiles. 'You just did,' he thinks back.


	119. Day 12: Original flavor Lenore Busker.

"You know, you could eat so much food with that body," Lenny says, gazing longingly at the cafe menu. "Live a little. Have some cake."

Syd raises an eyebrow and sips her tea. That's all she wants and it's absolutely tragic. "Matilda ate a lot of chicken during those tests. In both bodies."

"So what's it like being a cat?" Lenny asks, curious.

"I'm not really a cat when we swap," Syd points out. "I'm me inside a cat."

"You purr and groom yourself. How is that not being a cat?"

"You should ask Matilda what it's like to be a human."

Lenny rolls her eyes, then tosses the menu down onto the table with a sigh. She slumps back in her chair and takes a moment to bask in the sunshine, to watch the people passing by the cafe's outdoor tables. Syd needed a break from D3, and so did Lenny.

"But seriously, what's it like being a cat?" Lenny presses.

Syd huffs, reluctantly amused. "It's a mixed bag. Everything's huge and you can't open doors. Everyone wants to touch you and they don't ask first. But you can go pretty much anywhere you want. If I ever wanted to be a spy, cats would be the way to go. Or maybe birds."

"Have you ever been a bird?" Lenny asks.

"Of course," Syd says. "But they're nervous, high energy. They don't sit calmly playing with some string until we swap back. So it can be—"

She trails off and stares down into her tea. Lenny doesn't need the relay to know what she's thinking about.

Everyone already told Syd it wasn't her fault, even Kerry — once Kerry calmed down enough to apologize. But Syd feels bad about it anyway. It reminds Lenny of last night, of Divad and Dvd forgiving her for things that she never did.

Lenny flags down their waiter and orders a cinnamon roll and a side of fries, and then asks for a triple-stack of waffles with extra syrup on the side, to go.

"The waffles are for the Davids," Lenny explains, once the waiter's gone.

"And the rest?" Syd asks.

"That's for me," Lenny says, savoring the anticipation.

"No cake?" Syd teases. "Don't you need the Admiral for food therapy?"

"Nah," Lenny says. "I only need scent to do memory work."

Syd perks up. "What are you trying to remember?"

"Me," Lenny says. "Original flavor Lenore Busker."

Syd eyes Lenny's notebook again. She's been doing that all morning. Looks like Syd’s as vulnerable to curiosity as the Davids are. "Is that what you worked on last night?"

"Pretty much," Lenny says. "If I'm gonna be the real me, then I gotta make my real memories stronger."

"Like Oliver?" Syd asks.

"Sort of," Lenny shrugs. "Don't expect anything dramatic. I already got my memories back. They're just hazy."

"So how do you make them stronger?" Syd asks.

"Connections," Lenny says, tapping the side of her head. "Ptonomy's got me writing everything down. If there's like, something sensory tied to the memory, I go over the memory again with the sensory stimulation."

"Is it working?"

"Fuck yeah," Lenny says, relieved. "Gonna give this bullshit the one-two punch. Dissociate from Lenny-Benny, and make lots of associations for Lenny-Lenny."

Syd visibly relaxes. "I'm glad to hear it," she says, offering a small smile. "I know it's been hard for you."

"I'm the one who chooses who I am," Lenny says, with feeling. "Even if my real memories are shit, they're mine.”

"So what's connected to cinnamon rolls and fries?" Syd asks.

"Plenty," Lenny says. She's not eager to share, her life's always been her own business, but— She's gotta model for Syd. She opens her notebook and flips through it, past pages of memories punctuated by the occasional page of foundation work.

Syd's eyebrows raise as Lenny keeps flipping. "You just got that notebook last night."

"No sleep and lots of motivation," Lenny explains. She needs a strong grip on herself if she wants to keep from drifting away again. And after a lifetime of trying to escape—

But that's in her therapy list. Stop trying to escape where she is and what she's been. Stand and fight for what she wants. She had some time to think about what she wants and added to her wish list: to be herself, to never be trapped again, and to never be a victim again.

Those things are definitely worth fighting for. And she's still going to want them after Farouk's dead and they all take that tropical vacation.

She's still browsing her memories when the fries and cinnamon roll arrive, both steaming hot. Lenny sticks her nose in the steam of the fries and breathes in deeply, and remembers—

"Late nights on the street," she says, her eyes closed. "A bad taste in my mouth and some crumpled up bills in my hand. I toss them on the counter and—" She takes another breath in. "Yeah, that takes me back. All that beautiful salt and grease." She picks up a fry and feels the warmth, the texture of it. She rubs it along her lips, licks it with her tongue, savoring it. A cheap treat at the end of another bad night, to make her shitty life just a little bit bearable.

She sighs and slides over the cinnamon roll.

"Now this," she says, a smirk already curling her lips. "This is a good one. Morning after, hungover, my girl and I followed our noses. I licked the frosting off her fingers. Made her giggle." She takes a deep breath in, smelling the intense sweetness, the rich cinnamon. She can almost feel the girl's sticky fingers in her mouth, and that makes her remember the taste of her own sticky fingers the night before. She can't remember that chick's name, assuming she ever knew it, but Lenny's never gonna forget the taste— Of her or the cinnamon roll.

She pulls off a piece of the cinnamon roll, savoring the slow rip of the gooey dough, then offers it to Syd. Syd hesitates, then takes it. Lenny watches her eat it, watches her lick her own fingers clean. It's not a perfect match to the memory, but—

Lenny sighs, pleased. The more she remembers it, the more she connects to it, the stronger the memory becomes, the more she feels like— What she thinks her real self used to feel like.

"Wanna fry?" Lenny offers.

Syd takes two and nibbles her way through them one at a time. If Lenny could eat, she'd stuff a whole handful of fries into her face, then wash it down with a swig of vodka for the perfect potato combination. God she misses eating and sleeping and just— Being alive. She knows she's not technically dead but she misses being alive.

She breathes in the steam from both the fries and the cinnamon bun until they start to cool. There's not much point to them once they stop steaming. She sighs and pushes them away. "All yours."

Syd takes another fry. They sit in a comfortable silence as she eats. Guess Matilda didn’t fill up on chicken after all. Lenny checks in on the surveillance cameras back at D3. It makes her restless, not having the relay, not hearing the Davids all the time and knowing exactly how they‘re feeling. She's been surrounded by other people's thoughts for so long—

But everything's okay. Oliver and— The Karries? The Loudermilks? Whatever. Amy's with them and Ptonomy's got the Davids in the garden.

"I guess— It feels like it happened to someone else," David says to Ptonomy. "I know it was me, but— Benny's gone and Amy and Philly didn't know, and—"

Lenny switches away from the surveillance feed. Ptonomy will send her David's session soon enough.

"You okay?" Syd asks.

"No," Lenny says, in no mood to pretend. "But that's why I'm doing the work, right?"

"Right," Syd says. She looks at her own notebook, flips it open. There's pages of foundation work and sketches of the Davids. She pauses on one sketch, and Lenny wonders what she's thinking.

Relay's down. But hey, there's always the old-fashioned way.

"Whatcha thinking?" Lenny asks.

"I'm sorry," Syd says, still looking at the sketch.

"For what?" Lenny prompts.

Syd takes a steadying breath and looks up. "For sending you into a wall."

Lenny grimaces.

"And for other things," Syd continues. "We never really— Got along and— That's my fault."

"It was," Lenny agrees. "But hey, it's not like I was big on letting people in either."

"You let David in," Syd counters.

"David let himself in," Lenny says. "Same as you. Just batted those baby blues at us and that was that."

"Do you remember how you two met?" Syd asks.

"Wish I didn’t," Lenny mutters, reminded again of yesterday’s Benny session and the way it pulled the rug out from under her. But fuck Benny. She flips through her notebook. " _Lenny_ met David in Clockworks." She finds the memory and reads it again, trying to scratch it deeper into her mind. "I got stuck in that place a few weeks after him, and let me tell you, I was not happy about it. I tried to claw the faces off a few orderlies so they drugged me stupid and shoved me in a corner. Same corner they shoved David in after his freakouts. Just a couple of drugged-up reds. He was—"

She pauses. The memory of their real first meeting is still hazy, but the more she goes over it, the more it stings. She used to think the Benny-Lenny version was better, helping David escape his pain instead of— Adding to it. But now—

No.

She needs the truth. She needs her real feelings, her real actions, good and bad and awful.

"Bad?" Syd prompts.

"The worst," Lenny says. "But hey, you got a taste."

It's Syd's turn to grimace.

"I wasn't nice to him," Lenny admits. "I wasn't nice to anyone." She pauses, remembering— Bitter rage. She wanted everyone else to feel as shitty as she did, and everyone included the pathetic disaster that was David. It was easy to hurt him so she did. "Everyone in that place was fucked up, broken. It pissed me off. I, uh— Guess I didn't want to belong there."

Syd offers a wry half-smile.

"Yeah, yeah," Lenny says, dismissive.

"So how'd you become friends?" Syd asks.

"One day he got a care package. From Amy. He didn't open it, just— stared at it all sad. I was curious so I opened it for him." She grabbed it from him and played keep-away before opening it herself, figuring she'd just take what she wanted if there was anything good. "There was a letter inside. He took it and gave me everything else." She let him have the letter, she didn't care about letters. After he read it— He didn't want the box back anymore.

"What was in the letter?" Syd asks.

"The usual shit," Lenny says. "I love you, I miss you, I hope you're getting better, blah blah blah. And hey, I'm happily engaged now that you're locked up for good."

"Oh god," Syd says. "Did she really write that?"

"Nah," Lenny says. "Just the engagement part, but— He knew."

"Poor David," Syd says. "Amy's been so good with him with all this, I, uh— Forgot how bad things were."

"He looked like he might try to off himself again," Lenny admits. When her temper finally cooled off, she felt like shit for messing with him. "I didn't want him to do something stupid. So I started keeping him company when we weren't drugged stupid. Tried to cheer him up, shared some of the candy he gave me." Gave it back as an apology. "And then, uh— I guess it worked, because— He finally smiled. Probably for the first time since he got dumped there."

She remembers that smile. It was wobbly and weak but— Genuine. Hopeful, grateful, a little needy. It made her feel— Protective. Strong. He needed someone to look after him. She's never been the looking-after type, but— Somehow she is for David.

And David doesn't remember any of that, the actual foundation of their friendship. Or he probably doesn't. She doesn't know what Farouk left behind, and— She's afraid to ask. It makes her feel like Dvd and Divad and— Amy, too. They're all missing pieces from David's jigsaw puzzle head.

She really needs them to win this before she's too fucked up to care. She wants to make a clear and emotionally satisfying memory of the end of the shit beetle's existence, and then she never wants to think about him ever again. If anyone deserves to be forgotten, it's him.

She flips to her last foundation work page and adds that to her wish list. Fuck the shit beetle. He deserves a slow agonizing death but she just wants him gone as fast as possible.

"You must have been really good for him," Syd says, her eyes distant. "Looking back— I realize how much of his strength came from you." She focuses again, looks at Lenny directly. "Thank you for helping him."

"Uh, welcome," Lenny says, surprised. It's weird to get something other than wariness and hostility from Syd, but— It's not awful. "I guess you've been good for him, too."

Syd makes a dismissive sound.

"What, you don't believe me?" Lenny challenges.

"No, I just—" Syd crosses her arms. "Right now I don't feel good for anyone."

Lenny doesn't know how to help Syd feel less like shit for blowing up Cary and Kerry. It's a shitty situation. But she feels the need to try. Just because she remembers being an asshole doesn’t mean she has to stay one. "Look, I, uh— I forgive you for sending me into a wall."

"You don't have to," Syd protests.

"Maybe I want to," Lenny says. "Maybe I don't want to hold on to that shit anymore. The only person I blame is the shit beetle, and fuck him." She puts both middle fingers up, like she's seen the Davids do.

Syd cracks the tiniest smile. She puts up her own middle fingers.

"That's more like it," Lenny declares. She lowers her hands and leans back. "And while I'm at it, I forgive you for being a total bitch to me when I got back."

Syd drops her own hands. "You're really enjoying this."

"Surprisingly, yeah," Lenny says, and grins. Syd's smile gets a little bigger. It feels good to make her smile, like it felt good to make David smile in her real memories. "Guess that means we're friends now. Who knew it'd be this easy?"

"I wouldn't call any of this easy," Syd says. She gives Lenny a considering look, and then— She reaches across the table, offering her hand to shake. "Friends," she agrees.

Lenny gives Syd's hand a wary look. All that touch therapy stuff yesterday— Syd was the one enjoying herself with that.

"Look, um—" Syd pauses, looking— Actually vulnerable. It's novel as hell. "When this is over—" She falters again, then gets a stubborn look. "Whatever touch I get now, that's it. So let me help you while I still can."

"What, you think everyone's just gonna let you suffer?" Lenny challenges, somehow both touched and annoyed.

"We don't know what's going to happen," Syd admits. "If all of this will be enough, if—" She trails off. She pulls her hand back, pauses, then offers it again. "Friends help each other. So let's help each other."

Lenny knows that touching Syd won't make her blow up. She sure can't get disembodied when she doesn't have a body. But she still hesitates and she feels like shit for it. She pulls up some footage from yesterday, when Syd was helping her with touch.

"Put yourself in charge of being touched," footage Syd tells footage Lenny. She had her hand held out then, too. Lenny skips further back. "Unless you want your fear to control you for the rest of your life, however long that is— You need to start," footage Syd says.

Like accepting help, like foundation work, like facing her past. Lenny couldn't accept palm-to-palm touch from Syd yesterday. But she made a start. She made the choice and put herself in control.

Last night, she recalled a lifetime without control, of being out-of-control the only control she had. But she's done being trapped, being a victim, a puppet, a doll. Fuck all of that.

She braces herself now, and before she can stop herself, she takes Syd's hand. Syd startles, still unused to touch, skittish after this morning's disaster. Lenny's tense, too. But she holds on long enough for them to shake hands like a couple of completely normal, untraumatized human beings.

They pull apart and they're both relieved.

Lenny leans back, recovering, and notices that David's session is done and waiting for her to review it. She closes her eyes for a moment and lives the experience in a flash. It's kinda fun being David's shrink. It feels good, helping David, even if it's not really her doing the helping.

Man, that to-do list thing— Looks like David's taking control, too. And if Divad and Dvd are already copying him, she knows that means they're gonna push her to make one. She might as well get a head start.

She flips back to her last round of foundation work and writes "To-Do", then pauses, wondering what to fill it with.

"What're you adding?" Syd asks, curious.

"David just finished a session," Lenny explains. "Ptonomy wants him to have more control over his therapy, so he started a new list for that."

"Isn't that what the therapy list is for?" Syd asks. She looks at her own foundation work.

Lenny shrugs. "David needs another list for the immediate stuff. Short-term goals."

"And you're making one, too?"

"You should get started on yours," Lenny advises.

Syd huffs but grabs her pen. She leans back and considers her notebook.

Lenny does the same. She looks over her therapy list and decides to move _make my foundation and mantra my own_ and _think about my future_ to the new list. Then she adds _strengthen my real memories_ and _talk to David about how we really met_ , then _work on my haphephobia_. There's no point in denying she has that now. Then, for the satisfaction of it, she adds _make up with Syd_ and crosses it out.

She's kinda looking forward to showing that to David.

"Here," she says, and shows her notebook to Syd.

Syd reads it, and when she sees the crossed-out line, she smiles and relaxes a little more. "Nice," she says, approving. She writes, then strikes out some lines, and then shows Lenny the results.

 ~~ _Build my new foundation._~~  
 ~~_Create my mantra._~~  
 ~~_Find my motivation._~~  
_Think about my future._  
_Face my past._  
_Work on my haphephobia._  
_Make up with David._  
~~_Make up with Lenny._~~  
_Share therapy with Lenny._

"Nice," Lenny approves. She grabs her own notebook back and adds _share therapy with Syd_. She could cross it out, but it feels like— They're just getting started.


	120. Day 12: Did you ever thank him for that?

After Divad steps into their body, he keeps their eyes closed for a moment, trying to clear their head. He wants to put everything he has into this session, into his to-do list, but—

"How are you feeling, Divad?" Ptonomy asks, from the other side of the picnic table. 

Divad opens their eyes. "Worried," he admits. "About Cary and Kerry. And Oliver." They're his friends. He's never had his own friends to worry about before. Like Dvd, he only shared David's relationships, even when he was in charge. And for most of those, there was nothing he could do but accept them as they came, for good and bad. Mostly bad.

Divad gives an apologetic glance over to his headmates. David is sitting next to Dvd, at David's insistence. Sharing his thoughts with David and Dvd is the right thing to do, Divad knows that. But it's not easy.

'It's okay,' David thinks to him. He gives a crooked smile, encouraging and forgiving.

"I know you want to help them," Ptonomy says. "When we get back to the lab, I'll get you the test results. You're the one who helped Oliver sleep so he could heal enough to get those memories back. You're probably our best bet for helping Cary."

Divad feels a flush of emotions at the easy praise. "Thanks," he says, bouyed. "I want— I _need_ to be there for him.”

'He doesn't care about Kerry?' Dvd thinks, annoyed.

"Of course I care about Kerry," Divad says, turning to him. "I want to be there for her, too. Especially because— They're a system like us." It's not just a guess anymore, they know it for a fact. After all these years, they finally know another system— Without Farouk making them forget.

"I'm sure your whole system will do its best for them," Ptonomy says. "How about you show me your foundation work?"

He hands Divad his physical notebook. Divad holds it, pleased by the sight of 'Divad Haller' written on the front. His notebook is just his, not his system's but _his_. That feels— Precious.

He carefully copies over his last round of foundation work from his mental notebook. It's starting to feel really good to write it, especially the wish list and the new to-do list. He feels suddenly, stupidly grateful to be here, to have this help, this chance to heal and be happy. 

He shows Ptonomy his work. 

"I see you've really taken to this," Ptonomy says, pleased. 

'Teacher's pet,' Dvd grumbles.

"I want to get better," Divad tells Ptonomy. "I always wanted to, I just— Didn't know how. I wasn't allowed to know how."

"That was a big shock for you yesterday," Ptonomy says. "Realizing how much you'd been made to forget."

Out of the corner of their eye, Divad noticed David straighten with interest. And Dvd frowns. Fuck. Both of them were too busy breaking down yesterday to notice Divad's breakdown. 

Divad's tempted to put his shields back up, but— They need to know. "Yeah," he says. "Um." He turns to his headmates. "It looks like— If David ever heard the thoughts of another system, or another mutant— Farouk would make us forget so we wouldn't be able to ask them for help." Farouk always kept them for himself. 

'Fucking shit beetle,' Dvd thinks, angrily. 'I hate him so much.'

"We'll stop him," David promises Dvd. 'I guess I was swiss cheese even before college. Maybe less has changed than I thought.'

It surprises Divad that the news is more upsetting to Dvd than David, but then David's used to forgetting things. And Dvd's always taken pride in having forgotten the least of all of them. And maybe he still has, but—

'I miss not thinking about this shit,' Dvd thinks, upset. 'It was so much easier when I was just angry all the time and I didn't have to think about anything.'

"Being angry all the time wasn't good for us," Divad tells him, then turns back to Ptonomy. "'Learn how to manage my anger.' That's on my to-do list."

"Is Dvd angry?" Ptonomy asks.

"He's upset," Divad relays. "He misses not having to think about all the bad things."

"Hey!" Dvd calls.

"This is therapy," Divad says back. "Ptonomy needs to know our thoughts. We don't have the relay so we have to tell him."

Dvd huffs, annoyed.

"I think anger management would be very helpful for your whole system," Ptonomy says. 

"Do you have something?" Divad asks, eagerly. "Some kind of— Anger wheel, or—"

Ptonomy smiles. "The emotion journaling will help. Recognizing your anger is an important step. Anger is often how we insulate ourselves from more painful emotions. What do you not want to be angry about?"

"The drugs," Divad admits. "Especially after yesterday. I know it wasn't David's fault. But—" He clenches their hands into fists, relaxes them. "I was so angry for so long."

“What is it about the drugs in particular?” Ptonomy prompts.

Divad sighs, braces himself. Of course he has to talk about it. Therapy is more than just— Lists and worksheets. But this— 

"Divad?" Ptonomy prompts.

"It's, um—" Divad tries. "It's a lot."

"I know," Ptonomy says, understanding. "But if you want to stop being angry, we need to work through the feelings that are hiding in that anger. Just like David has to work through his possession trauma so he can share your system's body together."

Divad looks at David, and David gives him such a meaningful look— He genuinely cares about them so much, cares about their system—

Like he used to. They’re getting David back, and Divad doesn’t want to be angry with him anymore. Maybe he can get through this for David. For their system. 

“The drugs,” Divad starts. “It was hard enough being— Prisoners in our body. David took the drugs to— Escape his fear, but—“

He stops, swallows. Looks at his notebook again. Ptonomy just waits. 

“All I had left was my own thoughts,” Divad admits. “The drugs— Took that from me. And they—“ He stops again. He reminds himself that David already knows. “I can’t— Separate the drugs from Benny. From what he—“

He stops again. 

“Okay,” Ptonomy says, gently. “That is a lot.”

Divad can only manage a nod. Their throat is tight. 

“All this was another way you lost control,” Ptonomy continues. “Like with the sharing.”

Divad nods again. “I want to be in control of myself,” he says firmly. 

“You’re making great progress,” Ptonomy soothes. “Does your anger make you feel like you’re not in control?”

Divad nods again. “It didn’t used to,” he admits. “But now— I don’t know.”

“Anger was your refuge,” Ptonomy says. “Leaving that refuge is hard. It means facing what you’ve been hiding from.”

Divad takes a shaky breath. 

“You agreed to help David by showing him your memories of Benny,” Ptonomy says. “But if you’re going to face your memories that way, I think you need to talk about them first."

Divad knows Ptonomy is right. They've had enough disasters already with the white room. But opening himself up to his feelings about those years— That's so much harder than just showing David his memories.

“How about we add this to your to-do list?” Ptonomy offers, when Divad doesn't reply. "Process your relationship with Benny."

"Okay," Divad says, relieved he doesn't have to face it right away. He writes it in and looks at the other items on the list. "I want us to finish our system foundation and mantra. Can we do that now?"

"I was hoping we could get them done this morning," Ptonomy says. "But without the relay—"

"I'll relay for David and Dvd," Divad insists. "And we're sharing our thoughts so we'll all know how we really feel. Please." He gives Ptonomy a hopeful look.

"Do your headmates agree to that?" Ptonomy asks.

David and Dvd are already walking over. Divad smiles at them. "Yes," he tells Ptonomy.

"Great," Ptonomy says, and smiles, too. "Let's switch to your system notebooks."

There's a flutter of paper as all three of them get ready. Sitting between his headmates this way, the three of them ready to work together— It reminds Divad of last night, of fixing their rocket lamp together. He wanted to make that memory for David, but— It's a good memory for him, too.

'And me,' Dvd thinks, firmly. 

They all look over what they have so far, the list of ideas and the mantra. _We don’t have to hurt our system and we never did. If we love each other and work together, the pain will stop._ Divad believes that now. It's more than just words. 

"Let's see if we can turn that list of ideas into your system foundation," Ptonomy says, warmly. "Remember, this is for all of you. Don't be afraid to make it what you need it to be. Let's pick up where we left off. The three of you decided not to keep 'We're brothers.'"

"We're not brothers," Dvd insists. "We're headmates."

"Headmates is definitely better," David agrees.

"We prefer headmates," Divad relays. 

"Good," Ptonomy says. "By the way, Dvd, that was great work bringing that to your system."

"Kerry found it," Dvd says, unusually shy about taking credit. Divad relays for him.

"She did," Ptonomy agrees. "She got it from the autobiography you read together. But you allowed yourself to be open to that book and to your friendship with Kerry. And because you did that, you were able to give your system something that's really helping it."

"It is," David tells Dvd. "Thank you, Dvd."

Dvd ducks his head, shy again. 

"David thanked Dvd, and uh, Dvd really liked it," Divad relays, which makes Dvd _blush_.

'Dvd's cute when he's shy,' David thinks, then blushes himself. 

'I'm not shy,' Dvd protests, but he's fighting not to smile.

Divad quickly realizes that all of them sharing thoughts means they're going to be stuck in feedback loops of flirting. He's not sure how he feels about that, but at least it's better than feedback loops of torture.

"Divad?" Ptonomy prompts.

"They're, um— Flirting," Divad admits. 

"And you're not comfortable with that?" Ptonomy asks.

"I don't mind it, it's just—" Divad glances at his headmates. They're watching him now, both of them focused on him. Divad's definitely not used to that. 

Before they lost David, the two of them always had each other. And Divad was just— Alone.

"Divad," David says, concerned. 

"It was my fault," Divad tells him. He took refuge in his anger, and the more he took his anger out on David, the more he pushed both his headmates away. It should be enough that they're all together again, helping each other heal.

"But it's not?" David asks.

"I can't ask you to— Feel that way about me," Divad says. He doesn't deserve David's forgiveness, much less his love, even though— He's trying to accept his forgiveness.

"But you feel that way about me?" David asks.

"Yeah," Divad admits. He wonders if maybe those feelings are better left behind. But he doesn't know how to do that. 

He wishes Ptonomy had heard all that through the relay. But he has to say it.

"It's, um—" Divad starts, trying to find the words. "I love David." He swallows. Saying it so plainly— It makes their chest hurt. "David and Dvd being together again—"

"We're not," David says.

'Don't say that,' Dvd pleads.

"I'm not with anyone," David says, firmly. "After yesterday— If I learned anything it was that I am not ready to be with anyone that way. That's why we both agreed to just acknowledge our feelings, remember?"

Dvd pouts.

"David reminded us that he's not with anyone," Divad relays.

"Let's take this opportunity to talk about what you want your relationships to be," Ptonomy says. "Headmates leaves things open, and that's healthy. But there's a lot of expectations that need to be addressed. Dvd, I'd like you to go first."

"I want David back," Dvd says, and Divad relays. "I know things have to be different, but— I miss being close."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "And how about your relationship with Divad? What would you like that to be?"

That makes Dvd pause. "I dunno. We spent the last ten years shouting at each other." Divad relays that.

"Would you like to be close with Divad?" Ptonomy asks.

Dvd and Divad look at each other. 

"Do you?" Divad asks, curious.

"I never thought about it," Dvd protests. "You were a threat to David. That's all you were."

"That's all you let me be," Divad says, feeling— Hurt. It's an old hurt, and he probably wouldn't have even acknowledged if it he was still being angry all the time, or using his powers to numb himself. "We used to be close. We were all— Best friends with each other. We'd do anything for each other."

"Yeah, and then you started caring more about yourself than our system," Dvd says.

"No," Divad says. "I never stopped caring about you and David. The way our system worked hurt me, that's what drove us apart." That and the monster. 

'Sharing was the only thing that made life bearable,' Dvd thinks. 

"Dvd," David intervenes. "All that sharing— That was Divad. He used his powers to do that for us. Did you ever— Thank him for that?"

Dvd stares at David, genuinely taken aback. Divad's surprised, too. It's like— Thanking their heart for beating. 

"You're not an organ," David tells Divad, a little sternly. "You're not a stress response. You're a person and you deserve to be treated like a person." He pauses while Divad relays all that to Ptonomy. "I don't remember it, but— You sacrificed yourself to help us, to make our life bearable. Thank you, Divad. I mean it."

David looks at Dvd, expectant.

'This is weird,' Dvd thinks. 'Thinking about Divad as a person is weird.'

"Well get used to it," David says. "We're all Davids, we're all people, right?"

"Yeah," Dvd admits. 

"When you miss sharing, what you're really missing is being close to Divad," David declares. "Because that was all him."

'Weird,' Dvd thinks again. He stares at Divad, somehow— Curious. 

Has Dvd ever been curious about him before? Divad can't remember it. They always took each other entirely for granted. But all the times Dvd comforted David, made him feel good— He did that through Divad. He wore Divad the way— Farouk wore Lenny.

"That’s not fair!" Dvd says, upset.

"That's how it feels," Divad defends. "I know you didn't mean to. I wasn't real to you because I wasn't even real to myself. But David's right. Everything you miss about our old system— That was me. You miss _me_."

'I miss Divad?' Dvd asks himself. He looks shaken. 

Divad catches Ptonomy up, tells him how all this has affected Dvd.

"And how do you feel about it?" Ptonomy asks Divad. "What do you want your relationships with David and Dvd to be?"

"I want us to be happy," Divad says, certain of that much.

"That's a good start," Ptonomy allows. "But let's dig a little deeper. Don't worry about what's logical, rational. Don't limit yourself to what you think you're allowed to have. In your heart, what do you want?"

Divad has to think about that. "Acknowledging I'm a person, it's— It changes things," he admits. "I saw myself as— On the outside. But David's right. All the sharing— That was me. Even though emotionally I was alone— Physically— All three of us were together."

Ptonomy nods. "Your system shared a lot."

Divad thinks back, remembering— Feeling David and Dvd loving each other. Wanting so much to be a part of that, but feeling like— He couldn't be. He was too angry, too frustrated, too afraid. Someone had to stay focused on keeping them safe, on making the right choices, on stopping the monster. But all that time— He was split in two: half-loved, half-unlovable.

It's as surreal as— Experiencing David and Benny's love, while being unseen, unheard, a passive prisoner.

'So what, I'm Benny now?' Dvd thinks. He seems genuinely upset.

"Of course not," Divad says, trying to take it back. This is why sharing thoughts is dangerous. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

"Sure you didn't," Dvd mutters. "Yeah, the sharing was you. But you're the one who made David want to kill himself and I’ll never forgive you for that!"

It's a low blow and it hits hard. 

"Divad?" Ptonomy prompts, concerned.

"Take that back," David tells Dvd.

"No," Dvd says, defiant.

"If you want us to have any kind of relationship, much less a good one, you’ll take that back right now," David says, brooking absolutely no argument. "I refuse to let you use me to hurt our system."

"It's the truth!" Dvd protests.

"You’re using me to take your anger out on Divad," David says. "That's wrong and I won't let you do it."

Dvd stares at David, speechless. Then he gets mad. "You want to be with _him?_ _Fine._ I hope you're both happy." He gets up and marches back to the bench, sits down with a huff, crosses his arms and looks away.

"Shit," Divad mutters. "Dvd got mad at David and left." He points his thumb at the bench, then catches Ptonomy up on the rest.

"Let's give him some time to cool off," Ptonomy says. "This is a lot for both of you."

Divad gives a weak nod.

"David, you did a fantastic job standing up for yourself and Divad," Ptonomy praises. "I'm sure that wasn't easy."

"I just want us to stop hurting each other," David says, and Divad relays.

"That's what we all want," Ptonomy says. "Saying no is important for healthy relationships."

"Well I've been practicing my NOs," David admits, and Divad relays. David takes a deep breath, lets it out, and seems calmer for it. Divad copies him, but it's mostly seeing David calm that helps.

Divad can hardly believe all of that just happened. Everything is so different now. Not just David, but— Everything. The new dynamic they’re developing, their whole understanding of what they are, what they used to be— And it's better this way, obviously it is, but— It's strange and confusing and scary.

'No shit,' Dvd thinks, and Divad realizes— He didn't put back up his shield. Dvd might be upset, but— He hasn't given up.

'Like I've ever given up,' Dvd thinks, dismissive. He doesn't budge from the bench, though.

Divad turns back to Ptonomy. "I'm sorry, I thought this would go better."

"You did great," Ptonomy says. "These questions of— Identity and relationships— They're very challenging. It's going to take time to work through them."

Divad looks down at his system notebook. "I wanted us to finish our foundation and mantra."

"We will," Ptonomy assures him. "But the process is just as valuable. David, how are you feeling? Are you ready to work on your relationship with Syd?"

"Yes," David says, confidently. "Let's do this."


	121. Day 12: Lost her in the desert.

When David finishes settling back into their body, Ptonomy gives him some blank printer paper and another pen.

"I assumed you'd want to keep this separate," Ptonomy explains.

Like with his possession trauma. David pauses, considering. It doesn't feel as-- Absolutely necessary to quarantine his Syd trauma that way, and yet-- His personal notebook is for his new self. It's to help him be the person he wants to be. Even though he definitely wants Syd to be a part of his life-- Being dependent on her wasn't a good idea the first time around. He doesn't want to have to learn that lesson again.

"Yes," David decides. "Thank you." _Syd_ , he writes at the top of the first sheet, and underlines it.

"Before we dig in, I'd like to talk about what you want to achieve," Ptonomy says. "What's your to-do list for Syd? What's a successful outcome?"

David considers the questions. They're a lot to think about, and it bothers him that he doesn’t immediately have answers. But then he's had a few things on his mind.

"I guess-- I don't want to be upset with her anymore," he tries. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "And what will help you do that?"

The obvious answer is to process what happened enough to forgive her. But that doesn't feel right. Or-- It's not enough.

"I love her," David says, looking at the page. "But she hurt me. Some of the things she did--" There's a slow swell of emotion in his chest. He thinks of Dvd refusing to let Syd have the relay. David didn't want to even acknowledge all the pain he's still feeling, but Dvd knew. 

'You bet I did,' Dvd thinks.

"Shh," Divad hushes. They're sitting together on a bench, though a distance apart.

Dvd rolls his eyes but goes quiet.

"I need to understand what happened," David continues. "Everything went so wrong so fast, and-- I was confused and scared and-- I needed her. But she--" He cuts off, his throat tight. 

"Okay," Ptonomy soothes. "How about we start off the same way we did with your possession trauma? Let's do some untangling."

"Untangling sounds good," David says, and musters the tiniest smile.

"I think there's three parts to all of this," Ptonomy says. "There's things Syd did under Farouk's control, like attacking you in the desert. There's things Future Syd did, like the orb and sending you to Farouk. And then there's what was just between you and present-day Syd. That sound right?"

"Yeah," David says, taking that in. It's almost like-- There's three Syds. Like there's three Davids. Not all at once, obviously. Well, sort of.

"Something wrong?" Ptonomy asks.

David hesitates, not sure how to answer that. "Do you think-- They're all the same Syd?"

"It's been a struggle for you, differentiating her," Ptonomy observes. 

"But they're all the same person," David says. "Or they were, before-- If the timeline's changed, then-- Future Syd's-- Dead?" He frowns. He remembers Farouk warning him away from changing the timeline. Not that Farouk ever cared about Syd, except to use her against him. And yet-- "Is she dead?"

"I don't know if that's a question we can answer," Ptonomy says. "I suppose-- When you have your powers back, we could try to contact her the way you did before. But that still might not tell us anything.” He pauses. “Does it help you to think of them as separate people?”

David has to think about that, too. His hope of getting through this quickly is fading fast. “Um. I don’t know.” He remembers trying to explain Syd and Future Syd to the monk on the roof, and all he felt was more confused. And then the monk—

He makes three columns on his paper. Syd, Future Syd, and Farouk Syd. Under Farouk Syd he writes: _told me I was a monster_ and _said I liked killing people_ and _shot a gun at my head_.

It’s a lot. It’s already a lot. But he keeps going. 

Under Future Syd, he writes: _kidnapped me_ , _stole a year of my life_ , _made me help Farouk_ , _lied to me_ , _manipulated me_ , _let Amy die_ —

His eyes suddenly well with tears. He wipes them away but there’s more. 

_Amy._ Her death still hurts so much, even though he has her back. 

“I, um— I guess I don’t need to now, but— I never had a chance to— Grieve,” David admits. He was too furiously angry to grieve, then. All he wanted was revenge. For all the good it did him. 

“Her disembodiment was deeply traumatic,” Ptonomy says. “For you, for her. Have you talked to Amy about it at all?”

David shakes his head. “I was just— So relieved she was alive— And everything else—“ He wipes his eyes again, takes a shaky breath. “Guess I should put it on my to-do list?”

“I think that’s a very good idea,” Ptonomy agrees. 

David opens his notebook and adds it. Then he adds what Divad has in his, about finishing their system foundation and mantra. It helps. 

He closes the notebook, wipes his eyes. This time they stay dry. 

He looks at the empty column for Syd. Somehow that’s the hardest one. Maybe because— What went wrong was his fault as much as hers. 

‘Oh please,’ Dvd mutters. Divad hushes him again, but that only riles him. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for what she did to us.”

David feels at a loss, so he relays what Dvd said to Ptonomy. 

“What do you feel was your fault?” Ptonomy asks.

“Everything,” David admits. “I know— That’s not the truth. But it feels—“

“If you’d just been good enough, said the right things, never made a mistake?” Ptonomy offers. “A lot of abuse survivors feel that way.”

“She didn’t—“ David starts, automatically, and then stops himself.

“We often blame ourselves for what other people choose to do to us,” Ptonomy says. “That gives us the illusion of control. It’s frightening to admit that we couldn’t stop someone from hurting us. Especially when it’s someone we love and trust.”

David nods, knowing all of that painfully well. 

“Any relationship takes two people,” Ptonomy says. “Both you and Syd have work to do. But abusive relationships usually involve an imbalance of power. And in your relationship with Syd, who had more power? More control? Who was in charge?”

“Syd,” David admits. Syd told him to help the monster that tortured him his entire life, and he went right ahead and did it. It hardly matters that Syd was Future Syd. All the Syds are Syd. 

At least he has the answer to that question now. But he leaves the columns as they are. 

_Blamed me for being taken_ , David writes. _Touched me and didn’t tell me. Trapped me in her head. Didn’t care about Amy._ He pauses. _Didn’t trust me and thought I was a liar. Believed Farouk._

And then he makes one more column and puts his own name at the top. _Kept secrets. Didn’t understand. Wasn’t good enough. Wanted things I couldn’t have. Didn’t do what she said. Left without her. Lost her in the desert. Made her forget. Tried to make her love me again. Raped her. Didn’t kill myself. Didn’t kill Farouk. **Didn’t kill myself.**_

He drops the pen and pushes the paper away. He feels shaky, sick. He feels like he should feel worse. He feels like—

Someone takes his hand. It’s Ptonomy. David grips back, holds on tight. 

‘I told them,’ Dvd thinks, worried and annoyed. ‘If she makes him suicidal again—‘

‘It’s a shame attack, let him work through it,’ Divad thinks back. 

A shame attack. Right. God, it’s a bad one. He wants to tell Ptonomy but he can’t even speak. Ptonomy probably figured it out anyway, it’s not like— His breakdown isn’t completely obvious.

"I'm here," Ptonomy soothes. He holds David's hand with both of his. His touch is an anchor, and David grabs onto Ptonomy's hands with his other hand. His whole body is burning with shame, it's hard to even breathe. 

There's nothing he can do but ride it out. 

'I can't--' Dvd thinks, distraught.

'We have to,' Divad thinks back. 

The shame was like a sudden wave, knocking David off his feet and dragging him along. But as quickly as it came, as brutal as it is, it doesn't take long to crest and fade. He takes fast, deep breaths and slumps in relief. His death-grip on Ptonomy eases.

"That looked like a bad one," Ptonomy says, gently.

David nods. As the shame eases, another wave sweeps in, this time-- Grief, sadness, regret. He starts crying, tears rushing out as fast as they can. He lets go of Ptonomy to wipe at them.

"Here," Ptonomy says, offering him the tissue box. David takes a handful and buries his face against them. His breaths pull the tissues against his mouth, push them away.

He hears the slide of paper against the table. Ptonomy must be reading what he wrote.

"I'm sorry," David says, when he’s finally able to speak.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Ptonomy says, firmly. "Not for what you just did."

David lifts his head. The tissues are soaked. He swallows, blinks, and more tears run down his face, but he leaves them. 

Ptonomy slides the paper back to him. David's afraid to look at it, but he does. Another wave of shame burns through him, smaller this time. He feels like such an absolute failure. He crumples up the tissues, grips them tightly. 

His mantra. He needs his mantra. All of that feels so far away, but-- 

He didn't deserve what happened to him. He fucked up, he made awful mistakes, but he didn't-- He doesn't deserve to die. He's not going to kill himself. He forgave himself for hurting Syd, Syd forgave him, he learned from his mistakes and he's not going to let them keep him from healing.

The second wave of shame breaks. There's another wave of tears, this time-- Of relief. He puts his head down on his arms and tries to just-- Exist. God, he's absolutely exhausted.

'He's okay,' Divad thinks, relieved. 

'You call that okay?' Dvd thinks, upset. 

'He's so strong,' Divad thinks, proudly. 'We need to be as strong as him.'

'Speak for yourself,' Dvd thinks. 'I'm already strong.'

'Are you?' Divad thinks. 

If Dvd replies, it's not with his thoughts.

When he feels able to, David sits back up. He takes a few more tissues and blows his nose, wipes his face, tries to gather himself. 

"How are you feeling?" Ptonomy asks.

"Awful," David admits. 

"Are you up to a little more work?" 

"Not really, but-- Okay," David says.

Ptonomy gives him a small smile. "You just faced a lot of painful memories. I could see how important it was for you to get all of this down."

David nods. 

"I'd like to talk about them," Ptonomy says. "We don't have to do any processing right now. We'll start that next time."

David huffs. "I, uh-- Was hoping we wouldn't need a next time for this."

Ptonomy just gives him a look. 

David slides the paper closer. It still hurts to look at it, but the sting is-- Tolerable. 

"You gave yourself a pretty long list," Ptonomy says. "How much of that was the shame attack, and how much is how you really feel?"

As ever, Ptonomy doesn't ask the small questions. "Um." David rubs at his face, tries to get his brain working again. "I'm not sure."

"Let's see if we can find one thing that you can cross out," Ptonomy says. "I'll even count the duplicate."

David looks over the list again. The second 'didn’t kill myself' was written so deep the pen almost carved through the page. But he can't bring himself to cross that out.

Maybe there's something-- Smaller. Something-- 

"I guess, um-- 'Lost her in the desert,'" David offers.

"Why that one?"

"I feel like it was my fault, but-- I was asleep. Syd could have-- Woken me up, or-- Just waited. She-- Must have wanted to-- Go without me."

"It was her choice to leave," Ptonomy agrees. "I'm sure she didn't plan on being pulled underground, but she knew the desert was dangerous, that Farouk was out there, and she still decided to face it on her own."

"She didn't trust me to save the world," David admits. He heard her think it. "She thought-- I cared more about revenge than-- I mean-- She wasn't wrong, but-- Farouk saving the world?" He gives a kind of laugh, bewildered and pained. He hugs himself, looks away. "She wanted to save him. She chose Farouk over me," he says, the words quiet but-- Thick with pain.

And she did. Syd did end up saving Farouk. He can't stop seeing-- The gun in her hand, the look on her face--

He shakes his head.

"David?" Ptonomy asks.

"I can't," David says, tightly. "This is all--"

"We're almost done for now," Ptonomy soothes. "Take a moment. Everything's okay."

David lets out a shaky breath. 

"You are not responsible for Syd's choices," Ptonomy says, gentle but firm. "Her getting lost in the desert was not your fault."

"Maybe it was," David protests. "If I hadn't-- Left without her, or-- If I'd-- If I hadn't agreed to help Farouk-- If I'd just-- Woken up first--"

Ptonomy reaches across the table. He offers his hand. David takes it.

"This is not something you have to carry," Ptonomy tells him. "It was Syd's choice to leave you in the tent. It was Farouk's choice to take her. It's not your fault that she was taken any more than-- It was your fault for being taken by the orb. Think about how angry it makes you that Syd blamed you for being taken."

That does make him angry. "I was taken," he insists.

"And so was she," Ptonomy says. "You can be angry with her and at Farouk. You can be angry at the universe. But recognize that this one small thing is not your fault. It was just-- Something that happened."

It should be his fault. It should be. But he can't force himself to take the blame. Somehow-- He knows Ptonomy is right. He was asleep in the tent when it happened. Syd left him there. She didn't want his help. She didn't trust him, she didn't-- And Farouk--

All that talk about-- Saving love, and-- In the end she just walked away.

He lets go of Ptonomy's hand. He takes the pen and crosses out 'Lost her in the desert.' He's not sure it makes him feel any better. Somehow-- "The truth is worse," he admits.

"It's harder," Ptonomy allows. "Blaming yourself for everything that went wrong-- You can wallow in guilt all day without needing to hold anyone’s hand."

David recognizes his own words, his own thoughts. "You said we'd have to talk about that," he remembers.

"That guilt, that anger at yourself," Ptonomy says. "You have plenty of things to be legitimately angry about. Some of it was even your fault. But there's a lot that you've chosen to carry because the truth was too much. It's a kind of fantasy, an illusion of control. But all it does is make you vulnerable to people who’ll take advantage of you."

"Farouk," David says.

"And Benny. I'm sure there've been others, in smaller ways. There's plenty of people out there looking for someone to exploit. Their choices are not your fault. But if you don't want to be vulnerable to them, you have to step out of the fantasy."

David looks at the lists again. At the end of the Syd list, he adds 'left me behind to save Farouk.' It makes him angry to write it, to acknowledge it. It makes him angry at Syd, and-- He doesn't want to be.

"I don't want to be angry with her," he admits.

"I know," Ptonomy says. "But if you want to truly be happy with her again, you have to be honest with yourself and with her. You have to genuinely address what went wrong. If you do that, you'll be able to forgive her and yourself. And then you'll feel-- The way you felt with Amy."

David remembers that moment. The peace he felt with her-- He wants that with his system. He wants that with Syd. "I want that," he says, certain.

"Then write it down," Ptonomy says. 

David makes another list. Syd therapy goals. And below that he writes: _Address what went wrong. Forgive Syd. Forgive myself._

He looks over the page again, trying to see it-- Without the fantasy. And then he crosses out: 

_Didn’t understand._  
_Wasn’t good enough._  
_Wanted things I couldn’t have._  
_Didn’t do what she said._

"Those were the shame attack," he tells Ptonomy.

"That's very good work, David," Ptonomy praises. "How about that duplicate?"

David looks at it. He tries, but-- He shakes his head. "Sorry."

"That's okay," Ptonomy says. "This was a lot of work. Let's wrap up. Divad, Dvd, please come back to the table. When you’ve all finished a round of foundation work, we’ll head downstairs. Syd and Lenny are almost back. I heard they got something for all three of you."

“For us?” Dvd says, perking up.

"Oh?" David feels wary about seeing Syd right now, but-- He wants to see Lenny. He misses his cruise director. He wants to see Amy, to see how Oliver and Kerry and Cary are doing.

‘Me too,’ Divad thinks.

"I won’t spoil the surprise. Do you want me to hold onto that?" Ptonomy asks, pointing at the paper. He's been holding onto David's possession trauma work.

"Is it okay if-- I keep it?" David asks. He needs a break, but-- He wants to think about it before the next round.

"Of course," Ptonomy says. "It's your work. You can do whatever you want with it."

Divad and Dvd sit down to either side of David and open their personal notebooks.

"You're doing amazing, David," Divad says. "I'm really proud of you."

"Um, thanks," David says, uncertain, but-- Pleased. 

Dvd doesn't say anything, he just starts writing. David wonders if he should ask what’s wrong, but-- If Dvd isn't even ready to think whatever's bothering him, they should probably give him space. When he's ready to open up to himself-- Then he'll open up to them.

David looks at the Syd paper again, then tucks it into the back of his notebook.


	122. Day 12: System waffles.

When they get back to the lab, it's dark except for the bright pool of Cary's work area, and the large window behind the sofa. Kerry and Amy are sitting in the work area, working together on something, and they look up.

"Oliver's resting," Amy warns, and points at the darkened sleeping area. Oliver's in his bed, though David's not sure if he's actually asleep. He's not wearing the sleep inducer, at least.

"How is he?" Divad asks, and David relays for him.

"Not great," Amy admits. "All those memories are— Very painful. We tried to help, but— He needs time to— Let things settle."

David cranes his head towards Oliver. It's strange to think of him as— Genuinely upset. But with his detachment fading— 

"Ask about Kerry and Cary," Dvd says.

Right. "Um, Kerry, how are you and Cary—"

"We're fine," Kerry says, cutting him off. 

"Kerry," Amy says, concerned.

"Okay, we're not fine," Kerry admits. "Cary's really upset and he tried to be in charge of our body but he couldn't. He said the only thing that makes him feel better is fixing things so— We're fixing things."

That’s when David realizes what they’re fixing is the rocket lamp. He walks up to the pieces. The rocket has been stripped and sanded smooth, and the shade is a flat, paintless piece of metal. The motor mechanism is in front of Kerry, and it looks like she’s almost done with it. 

“It’s in front of Cary, too,” Divad reminds him. “We need a name for when they’re together. Ask Kerry what we should call them.”

Kerry doesn’t seem in the mood to be asked anything, but it seems important enough to try anyway. “Um, Kerry— What should we call your system when it’s together?”

Kerry goes quiet, presumably listening to Cary. 

“Cary doesn’t want a special name,” Kerry relays. “But that’s cause he’s mad we’re a system and he doesn’t want to be one because he’s being a jerk.”

“Kerry,” Amy chides.

“I’m proud that we’re a system just like I’m proud that we’re mutants,” Kerry continues. “There’s nothing wrong with it for the Davids so there’s nothing wrong with it for us.” She listens again. “Well other people are stupid. That’s their problem, not ours.” She turns to David again. “I was already trying to decide what our system name should be before—“ She falters, then rallies. “I think we should be the Karies. Kay ay are eye ee ess.”

“Tell them I think that’s a great name,” Divad says.

“And me!” Dvd insists. 

“Our system really likes that name,” David relays, and offers the Karies a smile.

That seems to help, or at least it helps Kerry. David’s not sure what will help Cary. 

“I can help him,” Divad insists. “David, I need our body so I can review the test results.”

“Right,” David says, and heads for a chair.

“David?” Ptonomy asks.

“Divad needs our body to help Cary,” David tells him. 

“Just hold on,” Ptonomy says. “Amy?”

Amy stands up and grabs a stack of printouts. She brings them to the table and starts laying them out. “This way you can see everything.” 

Divad looks over the printouts. “This is perfect, thank you. Never mind, David.”

“I also have these for everyone,” Amy says, grabbing more printouts. “Our emotion journal worksheets and the emotion wheel.” She puts those on the coffee table.”

“Davids, add them to your mental notebooks,” Ptonomy says. “Dvd, we’ll all do this together later, but I’d like you to take some time to work on your own.”

Dvd gives an annoyed sound, but sits down on the sofa and gets out his notebook.

“I guess you have something for me, too?” David asks, thinking of the Devil with the Yellow Eyes.

“We do, but it’ll have to wait,” Ptonomy says. 

The lab door opens and Lenny and Syd walk in. Ah. No wonder Ptonomy wanted him to stay embodied.

“The gang’s all here,” Lenny declares. She lifts her takeout bag. “I come bearing waffles.”

Divad and Dvd both perk up. David hesitates, but when Lenny opens the styrofoam container— 

“That smells amazing,” David admits, drawn to the steaming waffles. It’s a triple stack.

“Waffles first, then work,” Dvd insists, leaving the sofa to join him. Divad hesitates but does the same.

“We’ll take turns so we can all eat it,” Dvd says. “David, sit down.”

David doesn’t want to make a mess over Divad’s work, so he takes the waffles to the sitting area. There’s still room on the coffee table and swapping will be easier on the sofa.

When he’s settled, he grabs the plastic fork and knife and cuts up the waffles. He slathers them in maple syrup. And then—

“Dvd, you can go first,” David says. He leans back and steps out. 

Dvd steps in and eagerly digs in. He moans in delight as he savors the syrupy waffles.

‘What’s that about?’ Divad wonders.

“Nothing,” David lies, then realizes the futility of lying. “I don’t know. I just—“ He looks away and sees Syd. She’s hanging back, watching Dvd eat.

David thinks of the paper in his notebook. He thinks about— Sitting at the table, Syd’s hand in his hair, and feeling like— He didn’t deserve to ever eat waffles again.

“I am not letting her take waffles away from us,” Dvd says, firmly. He takes one more bite and sits back. He steps out. “Divad’s turn. Then you’re next,” he tells David. It’s not a request.

Divad eats slower, savoring each bite. “This is delicious, Lenny, thank you.”

“Anytime,” Lenny says. She takes the loveseat next to them, in her usual casual slump. “Mind if I watch you eat?”

“S’fine,” Divad says, around a mouthful of waffle. "How's the outside world?"

"Nice," Lenny sighs, like she means it. "When all this is over, I'm taking you out of this place and we're gonna eat everything. Like, _everything_."

Divad swallows, chuckles. "I'll just be happy to be outside. I want to just— stretch our legs. Wander."

"Nowhere to be but where we are," Lenny says, longingly.

"Yeah," Divad sighs. 'That sounds really good.'

And then all too soon it's David's turn. He never imagined he'd ever have to be forced to eat waffles.

"He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to," Divad tells Dvd. "We don't all have to want exactly the same things all the time, remember?"

"This isn't about that," Dvd insists. "He wants the waffles. He's just— Punishing himself over Syd."

David has to admit he does want the waffles.

"Eat, before they get cold," Dvd tells him.

"He just did all that Syd work," Divad replies. "David, if you're not ready, it's okay."

David wishes he was ready. "I'm sorry," he tells Lenny. "I, um—" He glances at Syd, looks back down at the waffles. 

Thankfully, even without the relay or mutant powers, Lenny can just about read his mind. "Hey Ames," she says, turning. "Can you take Syd for a walk?"

"Actually, this is a good time for our session," Ptonomy says. "How about we take the garden?"

"Sure," Syd says. She's locked down again, and David feels like it's his fault. He's definitely not going to be able to eat the waffles now. When Syd and Ptonomy are gone, he slumps back.

"If you're not gonna eat them, give them to the Karies," Dvd says.

"Hey Karies, want some waffles?" David calls.

Kerry pauses, listening to Cary again. "Well, I want them," Kerry says, and she comes over. She grabs the takeout container and sits in the beanbag chair opposite David. She peers at the waffles, curious. "Are they hard?" she asks.

Lenny looks. "Should be pretty soggy by now."

"Good," Kerry says, pleased. She takes a cautious bite and is obviously delighted. "System waffles," she declares, and digs in.

Amy comes over. "Hey," she says. "David, can I sit next to you?"

"I've got work to do," Divad says, and heads back to the table. He gives Dvd a prod as he goes.

Dvd rolls his eyes, but he grabs his notebook and takes the other beanbag chair. He creates mental copies of the worksheet and emotion wheel and settles in.

David pats the space beside him. "All clear."

As soon as Amy's seated, she opens her arms for a hug, and David gratefully accepts. 

"Rough morning," Amy says, and rubs his back.

David gives a meaningful sigh and just soaks up her embrace. All his mornings are rough mornings.

"I missed you," Amy says. "It's so quiet without the relay."

"It's pretty noisy in here," David jokes. Divad and Dvd are both focused on their work, thinking about— Neurological scans and all the different emotions. It feels a little like having his outside powers back, the inescapable noise of other people's thoughts. Didn't Oliver call it— A resounding burble? He focuses on Amy, letting his headmates' thoughts fade into the background.

"How's um— Cary's body?" he asks.

"Stable," Amy says. "It's hard to say— How much it was damaged. Hopefully Divad can help with that, too."

"Divad's pretty smart," David admits. Divad's— Kind of amazingly smart. 

Across the room, Divad smiles to himself but keeps working.

David remembers being Divad-smart in his fake duplicate memories, but— None of that was him. Sometimes it's hard to believe they even share the same brain. 

Dvd frowns, annoyed. 'Envy,' he thinks, and writes it down. 

"A lot of people are working hard to help Cary," Amy says. 

"Um, how are you doing?" David asks. He pulls back to look at her. "I, uh— I guess you saw my sessions?"

"I did," Amy says. "Ptonomy's right. It's been— Easier to focus on helping you and everyone else than— Face what happened to me."

"We don't have to talk about it now," David says, not wanting to push her into it.

"Would it be too much for you?" Amy asks.

David considers the question. There's really only one way he can answer it. "I want to be there for you as much as you've been there for me."

Somehow that's— Not the right thing to say. Amy knots her hands together. 

"I still feel— Terrible about Clockworks," Amy admits.

"Amy," David starts.

"Let me," Amy tells him. "I keep thinking about-- How every time I visited, you would ask if you could go home. How you were telling me you weren't getting the help you needed and-- I just--" She takes David's hands, holds them. "I know that— As long as Farouk was inside you, there was really nothing I could have done. But you trusted me so much, and— I failed you. I failed my Davey."

"No," David protests, even though-- He knows she's right.

Amy gives him a sad smile. "I've asked Clark to start the paperwork to revoke my power of attorney."

David stares, taken aback.

"You and your headmates— You deserve to have full control over your own life," Amy insists. "I want you to have your own bank account, too."

"I don't need—" David starts.

"You do," Amy insists. "I promise, I'm not going anywhere. I want to be around to see my baby brothers finally thriving. But all of this is about— Helping your system be in control of itself. And me having that much control over it— That's in the way."

David doesn't know what to do with that. He knows it makes sense, but— It still feels like a loss. Maybe even— Like being abandoned all over again. 

"Can it wait?" David asks. "Until-- You're okay and--"

"Of course," Amy soothes. "C'mere." 

She pulls him back into a hug. He holds her tight and struggles with-- A sudden rush of grief. Like before, all he can do is ride it out. Divad and Dvd's thoughts go quiet as they watch, concerned but holding back.

David didn't think he'd have to face his grief over Amy so soon, but it's taken hold of him. He remembers Lenny holding him as he wept and raged in the interrogation room. It must have been-- Some remnant of Amy that made her try to comfort him that way.

He can't lose her again. What will he do if he loses her again?

'Grief,' Dvd thinks, and writes on his worksheet. He sniffs and wipes his eyes.

"Sorry," David says, trying to pull himself back together. He's upsetting Amy, upsetting Dvd, he shouldn't-- She’s trying to help them and he fell apart on her.

When he pulls back, he sees-- Amy's crying, too, her face crumpled with grief. She looks-- Afraid.

"Amy," David says, reaching to comfort her. 

"I was so scared," Amy says, with hitching breaths. "When he came-- I felt this-- Awful dread, and-- And Ben--" She sobs, and David pulls her close, holds her. "Ben was just-- Gone. He was right there and then he was gone. I couldn't even--" Her breath hitches. 

David saw, in the memories Farouk left for him-- The beer bottle by the open door, the black dust that used to be Ben. Amy's _screams_.

There's nothing he can say. There's no words that can-- Make their shared grief and pain-- Tolerable. But holding each other-- Crying together-- 

"Hey kid, c'mon," Lenny says, quietly, and takes Kerry back to the work area.

Gradually the worst of it passes, but David and Amy still hold tight to each other. They breathe together. She never actually shed any tears, she can't, but-- David thinks he has enough for both of them.

"I'm so sorry," David says, when he can speak again. "For you and Ben and--"

"It wasn't your fault," Amy says.

"I'm still sorry," David says. "If I'd--" He gives a ragged sigh. He has so many regrets about what happened after he came back. If he hadn't been so caught up in Farouk and Future Syd and the monk-- If he'd just asked where Amy was--

He just-- Wanted to wait until things were calmer. He didn't want to pull her back into the chaos his life had become. He didn't want her to get hurt.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

Amy just hushes him.


	123. Day 12: Helping you is part of my session.

_Make up with David._

Syd stares at the line in her to-do list and wonders if she's ever going to be able to cross it off. It's difficult to make up with him when he can barely stand to look at her half the time. Amy told her to accept David's pain as part of his love, but-- The problem isn't what Syd will accept. 

"I'm sorry we couldn't get to this sooner," Ptonomy says. "Things have been--"

"Yeah," Syd agrees. Things have definitely _been_. She pushes her notebook over so Ptonomy can see her foundation work.

"I see you got a head start on the new list," Ptonomy says. "Good work."

"Thanks," Syd says, quietly. 

"Relay's still down, so how about you tell me what's on your mind?" Ptonomy says.

Syd's not sure where to start, so she deflects. "How are you doing with all this?"

Ptonomy pauses. "I honestly haven't asked myself that," he admits. 

"You're a patient, too," Syd reminds him, wryly.

"I guess I try not to think about that," Ptonomy says. "I just want to do as much as I can before-- I can't anymore."

Syd nods.

"Even if you're only asking to avoid answering yourself, thank you," Ptonomy says.

"Maybe it's both," Syd says. "I'm-- Trying to be more open, more-- Engaged with other people."

"I saw," Ptonomy says. "You're doing great with Lenny."

"Better ways to be, right?" Syd says. "I notice you didn't answer the question either."

Ptonomy cracks a smile. "You got me. Okay. I'm-- Tired, honestly. There are-- More moments when it's hard to stay focused."

"I'm sorry," Syd says, because what else is there to say? "I asked Clark about-- Maybe it's time you got a real body."

"That's not an option."

"We're doing all this work to save Oliver and Cary," Syd points out. "We can't lose you."

"You already did," Ptonomy says, and then seems to regret it. "I'm sorry, that was— I didn’t mean that.”

“You meant it,” Syd says. With his android body, it's easy to forget that Ptonomy died, or-- Became violently disembodied. She wonders how much Ptonomy has been able to open up about that to Amy and Lenny and his family. Probably not enough. “So let’s talk about it.”

“Trying to play therapist again?” Ptonomy says, pushing back.

“I’m trying to be your friend,” Syd says, firmly. “But if you’re that eager to sacrifice yourself, then it sounds like you need therapy just as much as the rest of us.”

That seems to amuse Ptonomy as much as it annoys him.

“Look, um— I don’t know what you think will happen that means you have to sacrifice yourself,” Syd tries. “But the only one of us who can actually see the future is David, and even he couldn’t get it right.”

“Your point?” Ptonomy asks.

“We’re all modeling for each other, right?” Syd says. “So if you start making yourself— An acceptable loss— What will that do to us?”

Ptonomy crosses his arms, but it looks more protective than defiant. “I have to get us through this,” he tells her, meaning it.

"Hey, we're all in this together," Syd reminds him. "This isn't all on you."

"No, it's all on David," Ptonomy says. "And his recovery is my job." He pauses again. "I don't want my death to be-- I'm fine with dying. I just want it to count."

"Still the soldier?" Syd asks.

"Always," Ptonomy says. "Army brat, remember?"

"Definitely a brat," Syd agrees. "So tell me how it felt to die."

Ptonomy goes still. 

"You must have enjoyed it if you're so eager to do it again," Syd says, trying to provoke him. 

It works. Ptonomy gives her a furious glare.

"You're wrong," Syd tells him. "It's not all on David and it's not all on you. So get over yourself and start opening up before you self-destruct and get in the way of everything you're obviously driving yourself into the ground to get. Or did you not factor that into your statistical models?"

Ptonomy’s silent for a long beat, and then— He sighs. He leans forward on his elbows and lets his exhaustion show. 

"I'm sorry," Syd says.

"No, you're right," Ptonomy says. 

"I know," Syd says. "I mean-- I'm sorry I let you die. Me in the future. I don't-- Know why she did all the things she did. But I could have saved you and I didn't. So I'm sorry."

Ptonomy is obviously affected. He's silent for a long beat, and then: "I looked back at my own surveillance footage, just like you. There was black goo coming out of my ears, and no one--" He cuts himself off. 

"We should have caught it," Syd says.

"We should have," Ptonomy agrees. "We knew we were under attack, but we failed Melanie, we failed Cary and Kerry, we failed me. We failed the soldiers that Farouk turned to dust. We failed Amy and Ben. Hell, we failed you and David. I refuse to let us fail again."

"And thinking that way is your refuge," Syd decides. "What's your foundation, Ptonomy?"

"Guess I should know that?" Ptonomy says, wryly.

Syd considers her conversation with Lenny at the cafe. "You said-- We'd know David would be okay when he starts to help himself. But he's already helping all of us, showing us how to do the work even when it feels impossible. All of this foundation work-- We have that because of him. He's not just a patient. He's a helper, too. So let him help."

"David's got enough on his plate," Ptonomy says.

"It doesn't have to be him," Syd says, thinking of how Divad and Dvd pushed Lenny to do the work, and Lenny pushed Syd. "You said we were friends, and friends look out for each other. You told me there’s a better way to be than what you’ve always been. Maybe you need to find that out for yourself.”

Ptonomy sighs, and his posture eases. “You know, this is your session, not mine.”

“Helping you is part of my session,” Syd returns. “That’s what we’re doing, right? Building healthy relationships? With ourselves and with each other?”

"All right, all right," Ptonomy relents. "Gimme a piece of paper."

Syd rips a blank sheet from the back of her notebook and hands it over, along with her pen.

“I guess I must be doing something right," Ptonomy mutters. "But don't think you're getting out of anything. We're not leaving this garden until you talk."

Syd raises her hands in surrender. "So talk."

Ptonomy gives her a mild glare, then stares down at the blank paper. 

"Start with your to-do list," Syd suggests. She turns her notebook so Ptonomy can see it again. 

Ptonomy gives her an annoyed, appreciative look, and writes. "Know my foundation," he reads aloud. "Talk about my death." 

"Good start," Syd says, and is amused by Ptonomy's glare. "Out of practice, huh?"

"It's been a while," Ptonomy admits. "Helping others is a great way to stay busy. Avoid our own problems."

Syd feels like that was meant for her. "It is," she admits. "You've been doing a lot of helping, so you must be avoiding a lot."

Ptonomy shakes his head, amused.

"How about 'I'm a soldier'?" Syd suggests. "For your foundation. That seems pretty important."

"You know, when I was a kid, that was the last thing I wanted to be," Ptonomy admits. "I kinda hated my dad."

"Parents," Syd commiserates. "So what made you change your mind?"

"You know something about becoming the parent you hate," Ptonomy says.

Syd definitely does. "I guess it just happens to us."

"It does," Ptonomy says, turning thoughtful. "Being an army brat-- We moved a lot, all over the world. I was-- Kind of a lonely kid, especially after Mom died."

"What about your sister?" Syd asks. "I, uh, saw you with her yesterday."

"I know," Ptonomy says, because of course he does. "We were-- It wasn't like-- Amy and the Davids, or Kerry and Cary. Everything was a competition to be-- The better soldier. I thought she was Dad's favorite, she thought I was."

"Sounds rough," Syd says.

"It was," Ptonomy admits. "In the end-- I was right. She was Dad's favorite, especially after she joined the army. With my powers--" He pauses. "The first time I intentionally walked into someone else's memories, it was my dad's. I thought if I could-- Understand him, see how he became the man he was, I could make him proud of me. Instead--" He stops again, struggling. "I was still pretty young. Ten years old, and I walked into--" He stops, staring at the page, then looks up to meet Syd's eyes. "When I experienced someone else's memories, they became mine. And I couldn't ever forget them."

"I'm sorry," Syd says, not knowing what else to say.

"It's actually-- Easier now," Ptonomy says. "Being in the mainframe.”

"Are you afraid of getting your body back?" Syd asks, curious.

"Maybe a little," Ptonomy admits. "Not so much that I want to be stuck in here."

"Did they know about your powers?" Syd asks. "Your family?"

"When a ten year old kid starts having screaming nightmares about his dad's war trauma, it raises a few questions," Ptonomy says. "Not that they believed me. They just thought-- I had a very active imagination and too much empathy." He gives an unhappy smile. "They didn't think I was crazy, just-- Soft. And that was the worst thing I could be."

"But they know now?" 

"Yeah," Ptonomy says. "They still don't really understand, but-- They accept that mutant powers are real, that my powers are-- Something they have to accept if they want me in their life."

"I never told my mom," Syd admits. "But I think-- She must have suspected. I-- Swapped with her. Not just-- That one time. She used sleeping pills, so I'd-- Take them myself, and then swap with her."

"So she'd stay asleep in your body?" 

"I couldn't control how long the swaps would last," Syd admits. "I didn't really do much as her, not after-- I just-- Wanted to not be me. But no matter whose body I'm inside, I'm always me."

Ptonomy pauses, thoughtful. "It's been-- A while since I talked like this to anyone."

"Melanie?"

"Of course," Ptonomy says, fond and a little sad. "It's hard knowing she's out there somewhere and there's nothing we can do."

"Oliver's healing," Syd points out. "Maybe he'll be strong enough to look for her soon."

"Maybe," Ptonomy says. "But we were lucky to get him back the first time."

"The Davids will want to help," Syd points out. "Maybe together--"

"Maybe," Ptonomy says. He looks out over the city, then straightens up. "Thank you, Syd. This was-- I needed it."

"Anytime," Syd says. "So how about that foundation?"

Ptonomy frowns at the paper. "David really does make this look a lot easier than it is."

"He does," Syd agrees, heartfelt. "So are you a soldier? Or is that something you need to take out?"

"I don't know," Ptonomy admits. "I've been trapped in wars my whole life. My dad's war, the war on mutants, this war with Farouk."

“Trapped?” Syd points out. “Sounds like you don’t want it.”

“It’s what I know,” Ptonomy points out. “It’s what I’m good at. The world needs soldiers.”

“The world needs a lot of things,” Syd replies. “And you’re good at a lot of things. Being a soldier was your dad’s dream, not yours. My mom wanted me to follow in her footsteps, but that wasn’t right for me either.” 

"I've been-- What I needed to be.” Ptonomy admits. “What I thought I needed to be. My dad taught me-- Never be weak, never show where you're vulnerable. Being a soldier was his life."

"But you didn't want that."

"No," Ptonomy says. "My mom-- I wanted to be like her. She had so much love for-- Everything in the world. When she died--" He sobers. "I never got over losing her. It's-- Hard to move on when your memories never fade." 

"How about what you're doing now?" Syd offers. "What you did with Melanie?"

"Cary wants us to make a new Summerland," Ptonomy says. "Or something-- Better than that. Something to make the whole world better."

"That sounds like a good dream," Syd says. She's tempted by it herself. 

"It feels a long way away," Ptonomy admits.

"Divad wants all of us to think past Farouk," Syd says, remembering it from their conversation yesterday, from the transcripts. "I think we need that."

"Long-term thinking," Ptonomy says. "That's hard when you don't know if you have a long-term."

"Lenny's trying," Syd points out. "Maybe the world will end tomorrow, maybe it won't. Maybe my death won't be on my terms, but I want my life to be." She's been used enough. She doesn't want to be used again.

Ptonomy rubs his beard, thinking. He looks at Syd's foundation work. "My refuge is war," he decides, and writes it down. "That's what feels safe to me. When I'm being a soldier, I feel-- Focused. Certain. I don't have to deal with anything else. Just like my dad."

"Sounds right," Syd agrees.

"Problem with that is, I made everything war," Ptonomy admits. "Everything was a battlefield, everyone was-- An enemy, another soldier, or a civilian who needed to stay out of the fight. There's a high price on that."

"Your family?" Syd asks.

"All my relationships," Ptonomy admits. "Everyone I met. Every situation. Even therapy. My own, the people I helped. It made me-- Miss things. If I hadn't already decided David was a threat, maybe I would have realized he was telling the truth. That he wasn't screwing with his own memories just to piss me off."

"Is that what you thought?" Syd asks, curious.

"Pretty much," Ptonomy says. "I was angry and I needed someone to be angry at."

"I noticed," Syd says. "For my own memory walks, too. I thought-- You were angry with me for not being David."

"I was," Ptonomy admits. "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Syd says, glad she can mean it. 

Ptonomy cracks a smile. "How about we add each other to our to-do lists, and cross them out?" He writes 'Make up with Syd' to his to-do list and crosses it out. Syd takes back her notebook and writes 'Make up with Ptonomy' and crosses that out. They smile at each other.

"So you don't want to be a soldier anymore," Syd tries again.

"No," Ptonomy agrees. "Not that kind of soldier. My dad's kind. Being separate from my body-- It gives me the distance I need. I had to-- Step away from my pain to recognize it."

"You're different now," Syd admits. "I wasn't sure-- How much was really how you felt, and how much was-- What you had to do to win."

"When this started, when the Admiral asked me to help David-- My first thought was 'why bother?' David got me killed, he was unstable and dangerous, he betrayed us to help Farouk. But I only existed because the Admiral saved me, and he could only do that because David saved him. So I figured, might as well give it a shot. And then we found out about the alters."

"That changed your mind?" Syd asks.

"I was in David's head and I missed that he has DID," Ptonomy says. "I wanted the truth. If I had to be the talk guy to get it--" He makes an open gesture. 

"So how much is real?" Syd asks.

"More than I expected," Ptonomy admits. "Turns out it's hard to pretend to care without actually caring."

"Maybe you just gave yourself permission to care," Syd offers.

That gives Ptonomy pause. "Maybe I did." He pauses again. "I do care about David. I care about you, about our team. It's-- Caring makes it-- A good therapist should stay detached."

"I don't think Melanie was detached," Syd says. "She cared about all of us."

"And I thought that made her weak," Ptonomy admits. "Guess I was treating her like a soldier."

"And here I thought you were just angry with her about Oliver."

"Oh, I was mad at her for Oliver, too," Ptonomy admits, with mild amusement. "It's some kind of poetic justice that I'm in her shoes. Missing her, hoping desperately for some way to get her back, even though I can't."

"We got Oliver back," Syd reminds him.

"I don't want to wait twenty-one years for Melanie to find us," Ptonomy says. "Assuming she can. We don't know what Farouk did to her, before or after he took her. She's only human." He shakes his head. "Funny how she thought it was her job to protect all of us."

"She did, even without powers," Syd points out. "You know, if you want to talk about long-term thinking-- Cary's new Summerland is going to need someone to lead it."

"Me?" Ptonomy asks, surprised.

"You've got the experience," Syd points out. "You obviously know how to lead. You have a close relationship with the Admiral and you know all the dirty little secrets the government is hiding in the mainframe. Get your body back, keep letting yourself care about other people-- I think you'd be amazing."

Ptonomy thinks about it. "That's a hell of a promotion."

"Oh please, you were wasted as the memory guy," Syd says, waving him off. "Cary wants new Summerland to be therapeutic, not military, right? But someone's gotta handle the politics. You don't want to be a soldier, you don't want to drown yourself in other people's trauma. Be in charge and use your big-picture tactics."

"From soldier to politician," Ptonomy considers. "I think I like it." He thinks some more, then takes the pen and writes his foundation. "I'm a leader. I'm a tactician," he reads aloud. Then he adds to his to-do list. "Discuss position at New Summerland. And my mantra-- Allow myself to care. Let go of my anger."

"You're on a roll," Syd says, impressed.

"My wish list," Ptonomy says. "Lead New Summerland. And my motivation--" He ponders. "To protect the people I care about."

Syd smiles. "That's a really good motivation."

Ptonomy smiles back, genuinely happy.


	124. Day 12: The true person is the soul.

"I'm going to ask you what you asked me," Ptonomy says, switching back into therapist mode. "How are you doing with all this? How are you dealing with what happened this morning?"

Cary. Syd braces herself. "Lenny's helped a lot. Who'd have thought, right?" She knows she has to open up more than that, so she forces herself on. "Honestly? I just want to sit in a dark room with a bottle of whiskey and feel like shit."

"But you didn't," Ptonomy says. 

"No," Syd says. "I know that's— Not actually going to help me."

"What happened wasn't your fault," Ptonomy says.

"I know," Syd says. "It just doesn't feel that way. My powers—" She stops. 

"What about them?" Ptonomy prompts. When Syd still can't answer, he tries again. "They've caused you a lot of pain, a lot of problems."

Syd nods. She can manage that. Of all the time to not have the relay—

But she knows Ptonomy understands. That knowledge, their new friendship— Makes it easier for her to keep going.

"I feel like— Even if we all get through this, I should leave," Syd admits.

"Do you want to leave?" Ptonomy asks.

"No," Syd says, certain. 

"Then stay," Ptonomy says.

"What if we can't fix Cary?" Syd asks. "What if— I do this to someone else? Cary's dream— It wouldn't be safe to have someone like me in a place like that."

"We still don't know why it happened," Ptonomy points out. "You were able to safely swap with Matilda and Doctor Orwell. You were able to touch Cary with no reaction from your powers."

"I still can't believe that," Syd admits. It all happened so fast, but the sheer shock of being able to touch Cary— Though even if they do find a way to put him back together, she doubts he'll ever want to get near her again.

She has that effect on people. 

She pulls in on herself as she thinks of David.

"He could barely look at me again," she says, and forces herself to meet Ptonomy's eyes. "David. How bad is it? His trauma?"

Ptonomy hesitates. "He needs to tell you that himself. But we can talk about your side of things. David is on your to-do list. So what will help you heal your relationship with him?"

"I feel like— All I can do is wait for him," Syd admits. "Every time I try to get close, I push him away."

"You're not a passive person," Ptonomy points out. "I know when there's a problem, you look for ways to solve it. You're proactive. You've spent a year as one of Division 3's strategic leaders. So apply some of that strategy to your own situation."

Syd takes a calming breath and tries to think. It's difficult. She has so many feelings about David, about what happened. Things are— Tangled. Like they are for David. "I have to untangle my own feelings."

"Okay," Ptonomy says, pleased. "So let's do that. Where would you like to start?"

"Um. How about— What I gave you this morning?"

"Good idea," Ptonomy says. "I haven't had as much time as I'd like, but— Let's go through it together. I'll tell you what stands out to me."

Syd nods.

Ptonomy pauses to review the data. "You miss what you used to have with David," he decides. "You felt safe, in control. Now you don't."

"Yes," Syd admits. "I know that— Our relationship needs to be balanced to be healthy. But—" She swallows. 

"You're afraid not being in control of David means losing him," Ptonomy says. 

"Isn't that what happened?" Syd asks.

"Is that how you feel?"

"Yes," Syd admits. "He wasn't— Listening to me anymore."

"And when did he stop listening?" 

"As soon as he came back," Syd says, upset. "He was already—" She bites back what she wants to say. That David lied to her, that he kept secrets from her, that he wouldn't tell her where he'd been. She knows the reasons for all of those things now.

"I know what happened," she continues, calmer. "I know he was— Doing exactly what I told him. It was just a different me."

"Let's talk about that," Ptonomy says. "How do you feel about David's relationship with your future self?"

Syd huffs. "I mean, she's me, right?"

"Right," Ptonomy says. "But it's clear that you see her as both yourself and as a separate person. David struggles with that, but I don't think he genuinely accepts the distinction. You are you, no matter when you are."

"The missing arm should be a hint," Syd says, remembering their discussion of this before.

"David has an unusual perspective on reality," Ptonomy says. "Even setting aside the hallucinations Farouk subjected him to, he experiences the world on multiple planes of existence, often simultaneously. Astral and mental projections, psychic messages, psychic time travel. He tends to simply accept whatever is presented to him as real because he has no easy way to differentiate— Our limited, physical reality from the other realities that intersect with it. And arguably all of those realities are real. Human vision can't register ultraviolet, but ultraviolet is real. How do you see the world? How do your powers affect your perceptions?"

Syd thinks about that. "They don't change anything visually."

"How about emotionally?" Ptonomy asks. "Your powers separate the soul from the body. How does that affect your feelings about bodies?"

Syd hesitates. "I guess— It feels like— Bodies are just— Things. Something our souls are inside, but— Not us."

"Your powers encourage you to objectify bodies," Ptonomy agrees. "I think your history supports that. Your use of David's body to practice your powers. Your use of your mom's body when you were a teenager. The true person is the soul. Right?"

Syd nods, thoughtful. 

"So why should it matter that your soul's body is missing its arm in the future?" Ptonomy asks.

Syd gives an amused huff. "Okay. So you're saying— David sees people as their souls?"

"If it helps you understand his perspective, yes," Ptonomy says. "I think all mind readers give weight to the perceived mind, the part of the person they hear inside their own heads. Thoughts are less guarded, more honest. If someone likes you or doesn't like you, you don't have to guess, you _know_. Even if it's not visually separate, that part of people probably feels the most real."

"Even if all that's true— It— Bothers me that— There's another me that I can't control," Syd says.

"Future Syd definitely made her own choices."

"She should have taken me," Syd says. "If she wanted to change things, I'm the one she should have trusted. Not David, and definitely not Farouk.”

"I don't thinks she trusted anyone," Ptonomy says. "But you've got a point. Why wouldn't she reach out to her past self?"

It only takes a moment for Syd to figure it out "Because if she told me her plan, that would have been telling David and Farouk." 

"Makes sense," Ptonomy says. "Telepathy makes deception incredibly challenging. And most strategy is based on deception."

"I need to be able to shield my thoughts."

"If we had a way to create artificial mental shields, a lot of things would be different," Ptonomy says. "Now that we know telepathy happens through the astral plane— If there is a solution, it will have to be there. Mutant powers are genetic, but we don't know how to isolate a specific power in the DNA. There's rarely a single gene that does one thing."

"Point made," Syd says, annoyed.

"My point is that short of putting yourself into the mainframe, which I don't recommend, you need to accept the existence of telepathy in your life. You need to accept that your old way of protecting yourself — closing yourself off from everyone else — is not going to be the answer. Looking back at your life, was it ever the answer?"

Syd crosses her arms, frustrated.

"A lot of your issues come back to control," Ptonomy says. "You know that. This morning, you acknowledged that you're very uncomfortable with compromise, with allowing other people to influence your choices. And all these issues with David come back to your need to have all the control in your relationship with him. It's not just that you don't like the choices he makes. You don't like that he's able to make them."

"Yes," Syd admits, gritting it out.

"That need for control," Ptonomy says. "That's common with BPD. I know we've been busy with other areas, but I think we need to focus on this for you to make progress. Okay?"

Syd's still not happy about that diagnosis, but she's accepted it. "Okay," she sighs.

"Control is a kind of anxiety management," Ptonomy says. "You try to control other people when you can't control how you feel. Your negative feelings are too painful for you to confront directly. You push them outwards, project them onto those around you, and then punish them so you can avoid punishing yourself."

Syd pulls in on herself, pained. 

Ptonomy gives her a considering look. "I know this is difficult, but facing these things is the only way you'll get better. It's the only way your relationship with David will heal."

"I just want—" Syd tries. "Just tell me what to do."

"You sound like David, asking me to rip the band-aid off," Ptonomy says, a little fondly. "There's no quick fix for any of this, not for him or for you. You have to accept the reality of your problems, you have to do the work and commit to changing how you think and behave."

"I'm trying," Syd says.

"I know you are," Ptonomy says. "I can see that you're pushing yourself hard. But you can't rush yourself through therapy any more than David can."

"We don't have years for me to get better," Syd reminds him.

"We don't," Ptonomy agrees. "So let's focus on what we can do now, what will help you get through stressful situations without reverting to damaging behavior. Let's talk about what happens when you lose control."

Syd takes a sharp breath in, straightens. 

"BPD means your brain is always on high alert," Ptonomy says. "You're primed to go right into fight-or-flight. So when you feel threatened, that's what kicks in. For you, it's usually fight. That's what makes you impulsive, that's what makes you turn to emotional and physical violence. But there's also flight. That's when you pull away from everyone and punish yourself and drink. Right?"

"Right," Syd grits out. Sometimes it feels like those two choices are all she's ever had: punish the world or punish herself.

"These are normal human stress responses," Ptonomy says. "But when we can't manage them, that's when they hurt us. So what's going to help you most is to learn how to bring that high-alert down, control those impulses, and tolerate feelings of distress."

"Oh," Syd says, surprised.

"You expected something else?"

"I—" Syd pauses. "Yeah."

"Like I said, you're always primed for a fight," Ptonomy says. "Honestly, that's been a problem for me, too. I'm sorry I've been— Confrontational in your therapy."

Syd's surprised again. She's not sure how to react, so she just nods.

"Divad and Dvd's therapy brought up the need for— Better ways to manage our emotions, especially our anger and distress. There's some worksheets in the lab and we're all going to use them together when we get the chance, but let's get you started now. Get your notebook ready."

"Um, okay," Syd says. She flips to the next blank page.

"We are our emotions," Ptonomy says. "More than our memories or our physical selves, we are— How we react to the world. When our emotions are painful, our natural impulse is to push that pain away, but a lot of that pain comes from the way we refuse to let ourselves feel. It's like— Emotions are a flowing river. If you dam it up, all that does it make it spill over, flood. If you try to push it down, the pressure builds up until it's intense and destructive."

"So I just have to— Let it flow?" Syd asks, skeptically.

"Basically, yes," Ptonomy says. "Give yourself permission to feel. Don't push your feelings away, no matter how much you want to. Acknowledge them, recognize the ways your body is reacting to them."

Syd writes that down. "Then what?"

"Remind yourself that just because you feel something, that doesn't mean it's true," Ptonomy says. "You may feel betrayed, but that doesn't mean someone betrayed you. Feel the emotion but don't let it choose for you."

"I never thought of— My emotions as controlling me," Syd admits. Most of the time she's tried to make herself too numb to feel anything at all. "I don't want to be controlled."

"Then don't let them," Ptonomy says. "Experience them, acknowledge them, and then— Let them go. They were upsetting, so do something to soothe yourself. Bring that high-alert down."

"Like what?"

"Touch is a big one," Ptonomy says. "That's what David relies on. But it doesn't have to be human touch. It could be something soft, or a strong sensation like heat or cold. There's also taste and smell. A favorite food, a favorite scent. Some people keep a picture of something soothing, or they imagine it. And there's sound. Lenny soothes herself with music, but it could be white noise or nature sounds. Whatever works for you."

"Sitting in the dark and drinking?" Syd asks, wryly.

"I don't recommend that one," Ptonomy says, with a crooked smile. "That makes you feel worse, not better."

Syd thinks about that. "I'm not— Used to feeling better. I think— Everything I've done to soothe myself was a punishment."

"Like your cutting?" Ptonomy asks.

Syd nods. "Hurting myself— It's like the Davids. It feels good."

"That's something you need to unlearn," Ptonomy warns.

Syd makes more notes. "What next?"

"That was the short-term," Ptonomy says. "It's what you do in the moment. But what's going to make the biggest impact is the long-term work. Strengthen your emotional intelligence. That's self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship management. They'll help you learn to tolerate distress instead of getting swept away by it."

Syd writes it down, but she already feels overwhelmed. "This is a lot."

"It is," Ptonomy agrees. "But these aren't just a problem with BPD. We all need to do this and we'll do it together. You're just jumping to the head of the class."

That makes Syd feel a little better. She looks over her notes again. "I'm worried about— Shocks. This will help?"

"It will," Ptonomy agrees. "You're right. Intense emotions are overwhelming. They make it hard to make healthy decisions. These skills are our defense against that weapon."

"Okay," Syd says, resolving herself. If she doesn't want to be used again, she has to do the work. She knew that, but this feels— Solid. Practical. It feels like a lifeline. "Thank you. I think— This is what I need."

"You're welcome," Ptonomy says. "This is a good point for us to stop, so let's head down. Cary needs us in the infirmary."

"Cary?" Syd asks, surprised. "Did they figure out how to get him back into his body?"

"They're working on that right now," Ptonomy says.

"Thank god," Syd breathes, feeling a huge weight lift off her shoulders. She closes her notebook and stands, and notices— Ptonomy looks worried. "What's wrong? Is something happening?"

"No, but—" Ptonomy starts, then shakes his head. "Let's go."


	125. Day 12: Some unknowable number of untended wounds.

A tiny fossil brachiopod, Precambrian limestone clam, fingernail-small four hundred fifty million years. Tiny-ridged shell delicate as hardened thought. 

Oliver's not sure why he remembers those lines of poetry. But his head is a jumble of poetry these days, drifting spider-silk threads peeking out from the abyss, each thread waiting for the right wind to tug it up into the light, to lift its little memory like a sail and pull him wholly along.

This room is full of grief. There's David, of course, wailing in harmony with Amy's silent thoughts, Dvd and Divad his soft accompaniment. There's Cary and Kerry, both singing the same pain but as apart as they are together. And then there's himself.

What’s to be done about death? Nothing, nothing.

He winces against another flash of— Another life snuffed out, too far out of reach to save. This pain is old and yet— It feels new, raw. He came back to his body and found it— Bleeding out from some unknowable number of untended wounds. 

He's still trying to remember— What happened to him. How he ended up— Lost, frozen. He remembers the deaths, the suffocating weight of— Failure? He thinks it's failure. But the feeling is just another drifting thread, connected to things still out of reach.

He's not sure he wants all of this. They told him— He ran away from his pain, ran too far and couldn't find his way back again. He's starting to understand why. 

More flashes, more raw grief, and he can't— It's too much for him, all at once, all— _Ripped open by metal explosion— caught in barbed wire, fire ball, bullet shock, bayonet, electricity, bomb blast terrific in skull and belly, shrapneled throbbing meat—_

They told him he has to stay in his body, that it's the only way he'll heal. But surely it won't hurt to just— Rest for a while. To step away from his body's pain, as the Davids do. Just for a little while.

He sits up, leaving his body to rest on the bed, and the relief is immediate. The assault ceases, though the painful memories that have already returned remain. He sits heavily on the next bed and struggles with what he has. 

His name is Oliver Anthony Bird and he helps people. He has a family, a wife, friends. He made a safe haven for mutants, but he couldn't save enough of them. He watched them die, and then— He walked away. From them, from himself. 

He doesn't remember all of that. Most of it is still just stories, mostly from Cary. He remembers Summerland, remembers following David there, remembers— Being taken. And now— He remembers grieving there. He remembers— Cary and Kerry and Melanie and— There are other people but he can't see their faces. Are they dead now? Probably. Twenty years is a long time in a war.

He’s not sure how he knows that. 

He wonders if he cared about them, the faceless people. He probably did. But he's not sure he wants them back if they're long gone. It's difficult enough dealing with the people he cared about who are still alive.

Cares about. Not cared, cares. He cares about Melanie, about Cary. About Kerry, too, even though his memories of her are— Faint at best. He cares about David. He definitely has quite a lot of feelings about David, even though he's not sure what they are. His feelings generally are still— Difficult to reach. 

Cary’s trying his best to avoid his feelings. Lenny and Kerry are finishing the rocket lamp parts, and Cary's already looking for the next distraction. Cary has a very busy mind, Oliver's noticed. But it’s busy the way an animal is busy when writhing in a trap. 

Hmm. He’s not sure how he knows that either. How minds are. How animals are, and in particular ones in traps. Someone should free them, really.

Maybe he should free Cary.

‘Cary,’ Oliver thinks to him. ‘Would you like to come out?’

‘Oliver,’ Cary thinks, sounding hurt. ‘Please, now is not the time for— Whatever this is.’

‘What do you think it is?’ Oliver thinks, curious. 

‘A joke?’ Cary thinks to himself. ‘No, I’m— I’m sorry, I know you wouldn’t—‘

“Cary?” Kerry says, concerned. “Are you talking to Oliver?”

‘I hate that she can hear all my thoughts,’ Cary thinks, and immediately regrets it. ‘I’m sorry, Kerry, I didn’t—‘

“You meant it,” Kerry says, not letting it go. “I was inside you for years and I never thought bad things about you!”

‘Maybe you should have,’ Cary thinks, glumly. 

Kerry sighs. “Maybe we should try again.”

“There’s no point,’ Cary sulks. ‘Even if we’re a system—‘

“We are!” Kerry insists.

‘We’re not like other systems,’ Cary finishes.

“Cary, you have to keep trying,” Kerry presses.

‘Kerry, enough,’ Cary snaps.

Kerry’s mouth draws into a thin line. “Being inside shouldn’t make you mean,” she declares.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cary thinks, realizing he went too far and yet— Unable to feel anything but hopeless.

‘Cary,’ Oliver thinks again. ‘I’m sure you’d feel much better if you stepped out. Here, let me.’ He walks up to Kerry and reaches inside her, and pulls.

Cary stumbles out. “What?” he says, looking down at himself in astonishment. 'I'm myself again.' “How?”

“A bit of astral projection,” Oliver explains. “Very simple.”

“Astral projection,” Cary says, realizing. “Of course! Oh! Oliver, you can’t— Being out of your body isn’t good for you.”

Oliver waves off his concern. “We’ll be fine.”

“Cary?” Kerry calls, concerned. 

“I’m right here,” Cary tells her, immediately annoyed, and then immediately regretful again.

“Are you sulking again?” Kerry asks, annoyed herself. 

“No, I’m—“ Cary starts.

“Fine, be that way,” Kerry sighs, and gets back to work on the lamp. 

“She can’t hear me,” Cary realizes. He waves at Kerry to get her attention. She keeps working. “But the Davids—“ He smacks his forehead. “Of course. No telepathic powers. So this means— Oliver, am I just— My soul?”

“Half your soul," Oliver decides. 

"Astonishing," Cary marvels. "Have you ever done this before? Pulled someone into the astral plane?"

"I don't know, have I?" Oliver asks.

'Did he?' Cary thinks. 'Melanie might know, if she were—' "You didn't do that with Kerry. But then we didn't— It was just about— Getting her to come out on her own." He concentrates, then snaps his fingers. "Last year! In the— The false Clockworks. You brought me to your ice cube."

"I did," Oliver agrees. He's pleased to see Cary's mood improving.

"David had already pulled all of us from our bodies," Cary says. "But we were trapped in— Well, I suppose— It was one of David's white rooms. A constructed space inside his mind." There's a burst of chaotic thought as he works through it. Then he looks at Kerry, reaches for her, then pulls back. "Do you think— Would it be possible to— Step back into my body, like— Like the Davids?"

"I have no idea," Oliver admits, cheerfully. "We could find out?"

"We could," Cary says, and now he's very excited. He starts to move this way and that, his thoughts another scatter of chaos. "I need to talk to Divad, to my team. We need to get back to the infirmary. Oliver, when you were on the astral plane— We saw you in Summerland, in your diving suit. You made yourself visible. Can you do that? Can _we_ do that?" 'Why didn't we research Oliver's powers more? There’s so much we still don’t understand.'

"I can try," Oliver offers. He doesn't remember what Cary described, but that’s hardly unusual. He concentrates on— The feeling of being— _Seen._

"What the—" Lenny startles. She looks back at Oliver's body resting on the bed, then at Oliver's astral projection. She grabs a screwdriver from the bench and holds it out like a weapon. "Some kinda shit beetle bullshit—"

"Oliver?" Kerry says, surprised. And then— "Cary?!"

"What the hell?" Lenny says. She lowers the screwdriver and then raises it again.

"It's all right," Cary assures them. "Oliver's helping me."

"Cary, I can't hear you," Kerry says, worried.

"Oh, sorry," Oliver says. He didn't think to add the feeling of being heard. He concentrates again. 

"Kerry?" Cary says. "Tell me when you can hear me."

"Oh!" Kerry lights up. "I can hear you!" She rushes up to him, stares at him in intense curiosity. "You're not all there," she says, and puts her hand through him. "I can see through you."

Cary looks at himself and Oliver. 'We look solid to me.' "Oliver's helping me astral project from our body. Obviously crossing over to the physical plane isn't a simple matter. I'm not sure how long he can sustain this, but— I might have a way to get back into my body."

"Cary, that's great!" Kerry says, delighted. 

David and Amy come over. "Divad's ready to help," David relays. "And Dvd. And, well, me, if I can do anything."

"We need to get to the infirmary," Cary tells them. "Tell the research team to meet us there."

"Done," Amy says. "Ptonomy and Syd will come down when they're done."

They head out. 'It's strange being non-corporeal,' Cary thinks. He looks at Oliver as they approach the elevator. "Maybe you should go back to your body first. You'd only have to do this for one person instead of two."

"I'd rather not," Oliver admits.

"Oliver," Cary says, concerned. "This is what happened before. You have to go back to your body, like I'm doing."

They reach the infirmary. The research team is setting up, checking over the equipment. 

"Cary," Doctor Orwell says, relieved. Then her eyes widen. "Astral projection. Fantastic!"

"Record everything," Cary tells her. "All the wavelengths, and— Try the psychic filter."

"Yes, sir," Doctor Orwell says, and starts directing the team.

"I can't astral project on my own," Cary tells everyone. "But Oliver, David, and Farouk all have the same ability to— Draw a soul out of its body. So theoretically, all I need to do to get back into my physical body is— The same thing Kerry and I have always done. The same thing the Davids do. I'm going to step in and— Everything should reconnect."

"Theoretically," Divad says. "What about the damage from the separation? The anoxia?"

"It's hard to tell what damage there is until Cary is actually in his body," Doctor Orwell says. "Hopefully it was minimal, but—"

"Maybe I can heal him," Kerry offers. "If it's not too bad."

"No," Cary refuses.

"You can't say that," Kerry says, annoyed. "I'm on the outside now. It's my job to heal you."

"You will not take my injuries," Cary insists. "Absolutely not."

"If you're unconscious you can't stop me," Kerry threatens.

Cary sighs. "Kerry— We've always had a delicate ecosystem. Whatever condition my body is in, it is not acceptable for you to risk both our lives. Trying to heal me before— That could have killed us."

"I just want to help," Kerry says, upset. 

Cary moves to hug her, then realizes he can't. "I know," he says, gentler. "I'm sorry I've been— Difficult lately. This has all been— Extremely hard for me."

"Then let me help," Kerry says.

"We're supposed to have that session with Ptonomy," Cary says. "We'll talk about— Everything then, but— I have to do this first and I can't if it might hurt you."

Kerry crosses her arms, pouting, but— Relents. "Fine. I promise not to try to heal you even though that's stupid."

"Thank you," Cary says, and offers her a half-smile.

Kerry reaches to hug him, and realizes she can't. "Get back in your body so we can hug again," she tells him.

Cary stands beside his body. 'It looks— Ill,' he thinks. 'Now that I finally have the chance to get back inside it— My body was— Actually dead for a few minutes. I knows how dangerous even a few minutes can be. All life is— A sustained chemical reaction, carefully maintained. Interruptions to that reaction can be— Catastrophic.' He clenches his fists. 'I have to try. I can do this. I have to. For— For Kerry.'

The last thought is finally enough to compel him on. He sits down over his body, lies back, and then— Disappears into it. Oliver stops sustaining Cary's physicality, but maintains his own.

For a while, nothing happens. Syd and Ptonomy join them, and Syd hangs back, still trying not to feel like Cary's condition is her fault. Divad and the research team closely monitor all the machines, but Oliver doesn't hear any thoughts and Cary doesn't even twitch. 

"It might take time for his soul to reconnect with his body," Divad guesses. "I suppose— If we have to, Oliver can just pull him out again."

"Wait," Doctor Orwell says. "Look, there's activity."

"C'mon Cary," Divad murmurs. "You can do this."

"His eyes are moving!" Kerry says, excited. They're still closed, but Cary's eyes are clearly flicking back and forth. And then— They flutter open. "Cary!" Kerry calls, and grips his arm.

'Kerry?' Cary thinks, weakly. 

"He's calling for you," Oliver tells Kerry.

"Cary, I'm right here," Kerry says. 

'Hurts,' Cary thinks.

"He says it hurts," Oliver relays.

"What hurts?" Doctor Orwell asks. 

"His soul must be reconnecting to his body," Divad says, and types at the computer. "Doctor Orwell, look at this activity here."

"Fascinating," Doctor Orwell says. She stares intently at the monitor, then points at something. "I don't like this."

"Let's compare it with the scans you took without Cary inside," Divad says, typing again. 

'Damn it,' Doctor Owell thinks. 'This is what I was afraid of. God, what are we going to do?'

"Cary?" Kerry calls again. "If you tell us where it hurts, maybe— We can help you." She glances at Oliver. "You don't even have to say it, just— Just think it, okay?"

'Hurts,' Cary thinks again, strained with confusion and pain. 

'This is not good,' Divad thinks.

"Then get him out of there," Dvd says. 

"He only just went inside," David protests.

"His body's a wreck," Dvd says. "His brain is fucked, how's he supposed to use it?"

"Get him out," Dvd says again. "Oliver, get Cary out!"

"Get him out," Divad agrees.

"What's going on?" Kerry asks. She's on the verge of panicking.

"Amy, could you?" Divad asks.

"C'mon," Amy says, urging Kerry away from the bed. "Let Oliver work."

Oliver reaches into Cary's body and pulls him out. Cary staggers and then sits down heavily in the chair Kerry left, clutching his head. Oliver makes him visible and audible again.

'It still hurts,' Cary thinks.

"Cary?" Kerry says, reaching for him. 

'Why can't I—' Cary starts. 'I feel so weak.'

"He feels weak," Oliver relays. "He's having trouble talking."

"Even as an astral projection?" Ptonomy asks.

"But he was fine," Kerry protests.

"The body and the soul are— Symbiotic," Divad says, thinking aloud. "We've been focused on how— Returning the soul to the body is a good thing, restoring memories and coherence, but— A damaged body has the potential to damage the mind inside the soul."

"My god," Doctor Orwell says. "Can he— Is it possible for him to heal? As an astral projection?"

"He wasn't inside for long," Divad says. "Probably the best thing will be— For him to be inside a healthy body. Kerry."

'No,' Cary thinks, weakly. 'I don't want to go back.'

Kerry gets a determined look. "Will him being in me hurt me?" she asks Divad.

"Probably not," Divad says. "The 'inside' half of your soul doesn't seem to affect your primary body."

Kerry marches up to Cary. "You're gonna go back inside me and you're gonna let me heal you," she tells him. "Maybe I can't heal your body but I can help our soul."

Cary gives her a mournful look.

"You have to get better," Kerry says, stubborn but gentle. She reaches for him again, touching through him, then she straightens up. She braces herself and then she sits down over Cary, and Cary's astral form fades away. Kerry lets out a slow breath. "I've got him," she says.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, visibly thinking even though Oliver can't hear his thoughts. "Cary can't go back into his body until it's healed. How bad is the damage?"

"Bad," Doctor Orwell says, unhappily. "Anoxia is— Devastating to the brain. Global cerebral ischemia— That affects language, sensory processing, movement, memory. Even best case scenarios require years of treatment to restore basic functionality. Much of the damage may be simply— Irreparable."

Inside of Kerry— Cary start to cry.

'Why did I let them touch me?' Syd thinks, devastated.

"Cary," Kerry says, worried. "He's crying," she relays, and starts crying herself. She leaps out of the chair and into Amy's arms, and buries her face against Amy's shoulder.

'If I could just heal Cary's body the way I'm healing ours,' Divad thinks. 'Why didn't it work with Mom?'

"Oliver," Ptonomy says, turning to him. "Thank you for your help, but— I think it's time you went back to your body, too."

"Perhaps not," Oliver says. "My body is also quite painful."

"Your situation is different from Cary's," Ptonomy says.

"Is it?" Oliver asks, genuinely. "I feel more myself as a projection."

'He doesn't even know what his 'self' is,' Dvd thinks, unimpressed.

"That is a fair point," Oliver admits. "Perhaps I don't feel like myself. But perhaps 'myself' isn't something I want to feel like at all."

"You're unhappy with your memories?" Ptonomy asks. 

"Yes," Oliver says, bluntly. 

"Oliver, all those years ago," Ptonomy says, thoughtful. "You helped all those people. But did you ever get help for your own trauma?"

'He didn't,' Cary thinks. 'That's why we lost him.'

"Cary says he didn't, and that's why we lost Oliver," Kerry relays, through her tears.

"Doctors make the worst patients," Ptonomy admits. "Most of us are guilty of that. It's hard for us to ask for help. Oliver, do you really want to forget everything all over again? Do you really want to just— Drift away?"

Oliver isn't sure how to answer that. He wants to remember Melanie, Cary, Kerry. He wants to remember his past. But what he's getting back is— Agonizing. Even as a projection. It hurts so much. He wants the pain to stop. Like the Davids.

"You've listened to us telling you who you used to be," Ptonomy says. "How about we go back to the lab, to your body. You tell us what you remember and we'll listen? Maybe it'll help."

Everyone is looking at Oliver. It's strange to be the center of so much attention. He was so lonely in the ice cube for so long. He forgot how to be anything but lonely. 

But he's not alone anymore. And he's seen— That sharing grief can make it— Easier to bear. In a sense— That's why the Davids are a system. Perhaps that's why Cary and Kerry are a system. Perhaps that's why— He and Melanie—

Melanie.

"Very well," Oliver accepts. "Though perhaps a drink first?"


	126. Day 12: System-to-system.

Oliver's already back in his body by the time they get back to the lab. He was fine when he was an astral projection, but now he's crying again. Not sobbing, not really upset, just— Crying.

'Oliver,' Cary thinks, worried. 'Kerry, take us to him.'

Kerry walks over to the sleeping area. Oliver is sitting on his bed, blotting at his eyes with a tissue. "Oliver?" 

Oliver gives them a sad look. "Perhaps that drink?"

'We'll get you one, but— Oliver, why didn't you ever— Why didn't you just tell us what was wrong?' Cary thinks. 'Of course we would have helped you.'

"I have no idea," Oliver admits. "There's still— Quite a lot missing." He frowns, pensive. 

'You're getting the worst parts first,' Cary thinks. 'I wish we could give you— The good memories. There's so many good memories, Oliver. You have to let yourself heal so— So you can get them back.'

"I cried looking at the happy flowers in my backyard," Oliver says, obviously reciting. "I cried at the sadness of the middle-aged trees."

'The memories are in there,' Cary thinks, certain. 

"Are you feeling better?" Oliver asks. "Now that you're back in your body?"

'This isn't my body,' Cary thinks.

Kerry crosses her arms, angry. "Stop thinking things like that. Of course my body is your body. Your body was my body."

'I don't want your body to be my body!' Cary thinks, upset. 'I don't want to be— You!'

Kerry fights back her own tears. "You're so awful now! Why are you so awful!"

'Kerry,' Cary thinks, hurt. 'I'm sorry, I just— This is—'

"Yeah, it's hard, you keep saying that," Kerry says, annoyed. "But all you do is think mean things about being stuck inside me!"

Cary doesn't say anything, but she can feel his frustration.

They're making a scene, so it's not a surprise when someone comes over. It's a little surprising that it's Divad.

"Karies," Divad says, concerned. "Now that you're going to be sharing for a while, maybe— We can help. Me and Dvd. You know, system-to-system."

Cary feels pained at the reminder that they're a system, which only frustrates Kerry more. "Cary doesn't want to be a system."

"I think— We've all felt that way at some point," Divad admits. "But Cary, this is— The truth matters to you, right? People need the truth so they can— Understand themselves. So they can get better."

'There is no getting better,' Cary thinks, bleakly. 'My body is— It's destroyed.'

"Cary says he can't get better because his body's hurt," Kerry relays. "But he has my body, too! He's not— He didn't get all the way disembodied. His body’s a physical projection."

'It wasn't before,' Cary thinks, upset. 'Farouk did that to us. He— He destroyed who I was!'

"Cary says this is Farouk's fault," Kerry relays. "And yeah, I mean— Obviously! But you're acting like— Like it's the worst thing in the world to be inside me! And I never felt that way about you!"

'You should have,' Cary mutters.

Kerry wishes Cary was outside of her so she could punch him for that. She's never ever wanted to hurt Cary before but right now—

"What did he say?" Divad asks.

Kerry doesn't even want to repeat it.

"He said she should have," Oliver relays.

Divad winces. He glances at Ptonomy. "Aren't you two supposed to have a session today?"

"Yeah," Kerry says, unhappily.

"Oliver, would you mind waiting?" Ptonomy asks.

"How about that drink?" Oliver asks.

"We'll get it," Lenny says. "Syd, c'mon." The two of them head out.

"Let's sit together," Amy suggests, and heads for the sitting area.

Kerry huffs, but marches over and nabs her favorite beanbag chair before anyone else can. Oliver takes the other one, settling in with a tissue box on his lap.

"Are you sure?" Divad asks, looking at empty space. He must be talking to David or Dvd. "Okay." He sits down on the sofa and leans back. When he opens his eyes again, he's someone else. Kerry knows it's Dvd right away.

"You need the expert on being inside? That's me," Dvd declares. "And I know all about helping someone else be inside when they were outside before."

"Thank you, Dvd," Ptonomy says, as he takes his usual loveseat. 

"Dvd, is there somewhere your system would like me to sit?" Amy asks.

Dvd listens. "David says he'll sit with you there." He points at the other loveseat. "He's still learning how to be a headmate, so he just wants to watch."

Amy sits down, pauses, then smiles at where David must be sitting, even though none of them can hear him. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says. He looks around at everyone before settling on the Karies. "Kerry, since Cary's not able to speak using your system's body, you'll have to relay for him as best you can. Think you can handle that?"

"Of course," Kerry insists.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "But if Cary says something upsetting, you may not feel able to relay it. Oliver, if that happens, can you relay for Cary? Verbally, not telepathically."

Oliver dabs at his eyes with a tissue. "Certainly."

"Let's start with the basics," Ptonomy says. "Kerry, tell us what's wrong, from your perspective."

"Cary's being awful," Kerry says. "He hates being inside me and he hates being a system. I never hated being inside Cary! But he's acting like— Like it's the worst thing that could ever happen. And that's mean and— It's rude to the Davids."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "And you're okay with Cary being inside you? With being a system?"

"I'm proud to be a system like I'm proud to be a mutant," Kerry says, firmly. "We always wondered what we are and now we know. And of course I'm fine with Cary being inside me. That's how we always worked. But—" She hesitates.

"But?" Ptonomy prompts.

"Cary never made me feel bad for being inside him," Kerry says. "We were happy. And now— It's like he's making everything wrong, and it wasn't wrong before."

"You feel like— Because he's not happy inside, maybe you shouldn't have been?" Ptonomy asks.

"Cary said it," Kerry tells him. "He said I should have been— I should have hated being inside him. He said it like it's my fault I wasn't, like I'm bad! Cary never made me feel like I was bad!"

"Okay,' Ptonomy says. "Cary, how about you tell us your perspective? And Kerry, try to relay exactly what he says. No rephrasing."

'What Kerry said is true,' Cary thinks, and Kerry relays. 'This change we've been forced to endure— It's made me realize that— Everything about how we were was wrong.'

Kerry crosses her arms, extremely angry that she's being forced to say these things. 

"How so?" Ptonomy prompts.

Cary sighs. 'Kerry only spent an average of four hours outside of me each day. I treated her more like— An extension of myself than as an individual. I never forced her to be independent, and that enabled— Unhealthy behavior.'

Dvd doesn't look pleased when Kerry relays that, but he doesn't say anything.

"And how do you feel about your own situation?" Ptonomy asks. 

'Quite honestly, this is— A nightmare,' Cary thinks. Kerry's even more upset by that, but she's going to relay even if it kills her. She's not gonna fail at being in charge. 'Without my own body— What kind of life could I have?'

"You may be able to share your system's body, like the Davids can," Ptonomy points out. "How would that affect how you feel?"

Cary doesn't reply. "He won't say," Kerry says.

"Cary," Ptonomy starts. "Obviously the best outcome would be for us to find a way to heal your physical projection's brain damage so you can return to it. But we need to deal with your situation as it is now."

'If I could just stay an astral projection,' Cary thinks, but when Kerry start relaying, Cary interrupts her. 'No, that— Don't say that aloud. Oh darn it, Oliver already heard.'

"Cary would prefer to be an astral projection," Oliver relays. "As would I."

"That's not an option," Ptonomy warns, firmly. "Cary, how are you feeling physically? Are you recovering from being in your physical projection?"

'It's difficult to tell,' Cary admits, and Kerry relays. 'My body felt— Paralyzed. But I can't move Kerry's body either. I suppose— The pain is fading.'

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "From what you've said, there are three major issues. One is how to deal with the situation you're in now. The second is— Your new perspective on how your system used to work. And the last one is a problem of identity. Knowing that you're a DID system changes how you feel about a lot of things."

'Yes,' Cary thinks, and Kerry agrees.

"Let's take that last one first," Ptonomy says. "Kerry, you said you're happy to find out you're a system."

"I am," Kerry says, certain.

"What about it feels good to you?" Ptonomy asks.

Kerry thinks. "Having to be outside, it's been— Really hard for me. And even though Cary helped a lot, I still— I didn't— There was no one else like me. No one who was an inside person. But Dvd and Divad were inside people. Even David was an inside person for a while. And there's the systems in the books, and— Now there's all these people who understand, who can help me and— I can help them and— I'm not alone. _We're_ not alone."

She smiles at Dvd, who smiles back.

Kerry feels Cary's guilt flare up. 

"Cary feels guilty," Kerry relays. 

"Cary?" Ptonomy prompts.

'I didn't know,' Cary thinks, and Kerry relays. 'I had no idea that Kerry felt so alone.'

"I didn't know either," Kerry tells him. "I thought what we had was all I needed."

"But you don't anymore," Ptonomy says.

Kerry shakes her head.

"So why do you think it's enough for Cary?" Ptonomy asks, gently. 

Kerry hesitates. She feels another wave of guilt, then realizes it's her own. "I guess it's not. I just—" She hesitates again. "I thought— If we just— Did the same thing we did before—" She looks down at her hands. Their hands? "I don't know what else to do."

"It's okay to not know," Ptonomy says. "We're all here to help. We'll figure everything out together, right?"

"Right," Kerry says, and feels a little better. 

"Cary, how does being a system feel to you?" Ptonomy asks.

Kerry feels a lot of different feelings from Cary all at once. 'When Melanie and Oliver found me— They told me I wasn't sick, that I was a mutant, that— Those things made me belong. It was the same thing they told David and— So many others. Oliver, you don't remember, but— You changed my life so profoundly. But now I know that— You were wrong. I was sick, I _am_ sick, and— I feel like— That means I don't belong.' 

Kerry relays all of that, but she doesn't like it. "Being a system doesn't mean you're sick," she tells Cary. "And— Even if it did, being sick doesn't mean you don't belong. You said your dream was for everyone to belong."

'It's what I want,' Cary agrees, and Kerry relays. 'But it's not— What I've had. I protected you from so much, Kerry. I helped you hide from— Cruelty and judgement. I didn't want you to endure that pain.'

"I know," Kerry says. "I want to protect you, too."

'I don't want to be protected,' Cary insists, and Kerry relays. 'I don't need it. You were a child, Kerry. For so long, you were physically— A little girl. I'm a grown man."

"We're the same age," Kerry reminds him. "And maybe— I would have grown up with you if you hadn't—" She stops, feeling Cary's guilt spike again. He doesn't think anything, and she doesn't know what to say.

"Let's talk about how you used to work," Ptonomy says. "Kerry, you've realized that the way you used to work wasn't enough, right?"

"Yeah," Kerry agrees. She tries to figure out how she feels. "Cary's right that— I was just a part of him. I thought I was. And now— I'm not. And it's been— Scary and— It hurt and— At first I just hated everything." She looks at Dvd. "But there's good things, too. And I spent so long inside that— I missed a lot. And I hate that feeling too, but— If nothing had changed, I wouldn't have even known I needed to feel it."

Dvd looks affected by her words. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn't. Kerry wishes she could hear what he was thinking.

"Do you think Cary should have made you stay outside of him?" Ptonomy asks. "Forced you to grow up with him?"

"I dunno," Kerry says. "I mean, things were— Really bad for long time. I didn't want to come out and— Cary wanted me to stay hidden. But that meant— I made him face everything on his own."

'You were always with me,' Cary thinks, insistent. 'Sometimes— You're the only thing that keeps me going.'

Kerry tries to relay that, but she can't. Oliver has to do it for her.

'I suppose— I know how to live for Kerry,' Cary continues, and Oliver relays. 'But I don't know how to— Endure this for myself. And now that— We've been changed—' He pauses. 'I was so worried that— I would die and leave Kerry alone. If we're a system, that's— Impossible, but— She's doing so well now, I'm so proud of— How much she's grown. I know that— She'll have a wonderful life, whatever happens to me. But I can't— This can't be my life.'

Kerry feels Cary's sadness and her own, and she starts to cry. Oliver hands her a tissue.

"You can't leave," Dvd says, finally speaking up. "You have to— Find a way to accept how you were changed, even if it's— Even when it feels like you've lost everything that matters. Because you didn't. Headmates always have each other no matter what. Right?" He looks at where Divad and David are sitting and smiles at them. He turns back to Kerry. "Cary, I— We know how you feel. But you're the one who helped us, who helped David accept our system. You need to accept yours."

'Of course I accept Kerry,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays. 'But being inside her— I feel— Even a prisoner has their own body.'

"It's not always easy being inside," Dvd admits. "You could go to your— Inner world, but— You don't want to leave Kerry alone."

'I don't,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays. 'And I don't want to be— Isolated that way.'

"Maybe Divad can fix your body," Dvd says. "But even if he can, you still need to learn to be inside Kerry. You were hurting your system, staying apart, and you can't hurt your system." He turns, listens, then turns back. "Divad wants to know how it feels to be inside Kerry now. Is it different without your body?"

'It feels very different,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays. 'With my body, I felt— Physically present inside of Kerry, but— Like my body was— Asleep, even though my mind wasn't.'

Dvd listens again. "You said it was uncomfortable?"

'It was,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays. 'It was— Painfully tight and— It felt— I don't know how to describe it, but— That wasn't how we were meant to fit.'

"And now?" Dvd asks. "Without your body?"

Cary hesitates. 

Dvd listens again. "Cary, Divad thinks— You're dissociating from Kerry's body. Maybe that's why you can't control it."

"That has potential," Ptonomy says, thoughtful. "Kerry, you dissociated from Cary's body, too, right?"

"I guess," Kerry says. "I mean, I didn't like to think about all the body stuff."

"Divad says that's a pattern," Dvd relays. "He says— Because your powers gave you two bodies, you never had to learn to share. But now you only have one functioning body, so— Try sharing."

"We did," Kerry insists.

"Cary was still dissociating from your body," Ptonomy points out. "Dvd, Divad— When you shared before, Divad was in charge, and he took in Dvd and David's directions, right?"

"Yeah," Dvd says. "But we were present in our body, too. We didn't hang back, not— Unless we had to."

"Hanging back is when you partially dissociate from your body?" Ptonomy asks. Dvd nods. "That sounds a lot like what Kerry and Cary are used to doing."

'But we don't have your powers,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays. 'We can't share together.'

"You don't need powers to share together," Dvd says. 

"Both your systems are co-conscious," Ptonomy points out. "And co-fronting is something any DID system is physically capable of. You don't have to share your whole body together. In a co-fronting system, one identity might be, for example, cleaning the dishes, and another identity might reach out to stop a glass from being knocked over. There's also blending and merging. That's when two or more parts of a system temporarily come together and function as one. Though that can be disorienting."

"This is really complicated," Kerry says, warily. 

"Then let's keep it simple," Ptonomy suggests. "Like the Davids did yesterday, with the lamp. Kerry, wad up a tissue and hold it in your hand."

Kerry takes a fresh one from Oliver and complies. "Now what?"

"Cary, I want you to focus on the sensation of holding it," Ptonomy says. "The feeling of the tissue against your skin, on the tension of your grip. Accept that this is your hand, your grip."

'I'll try,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays.

"I don't feel any different," Kerry says, after a minute.

"That's okay," Ptonomy says. "Cary, how about you?"

'I'm not sure,' Cary thinks, and Oliver relays. 

"This'll take practice," Ptonomy warns. "But let's try the next step. Kerry, keep holding your grip, but lightly. And Cary, see if you can open your hand, let the tissue fall."

'This is my hand,' Cary thinks to himself. 'My body,' he thinks, upset. 'No, focus. Focus on Kerry, on— Our body. Our hand. Open our hand. Open!'

As Cary's thoughts build in strength, Kerry feels a twitch in her hand. Their hand? Yes, _their_ hand. "C'mon Cary," she murmurs, encouraging. "You can do this, I know you can."

'I'm trying,' Cary thinks. Kerry can feel the force of his concentration. There's another twitch, and then another, and then—

Their hand springs open and the tissue falls.

'I did it!' Cary thinks, triumphant.

"We did it!" Kerry says, excited. "Cary, you opened our hand!"

Dvd grins. "All right!"

"Fantastic work," Ptonomy praises. "Cary, how do you feel now?"

'Relieved,' Cary thinks. Kerry relays for him before Oliver can. "Cary's relieved. He definitely feels better."

"I'm very glad to hear that," Ptonomy says. "I want you two to keep practicing. You're a system. This is your system's body. Change how you think about it, how you feel. See if that opens things up."

Kerry feels Cary's mixed feelings about that, but there's less bad than before. 'Okay,' Cary thinks, and Kerry relays. 'We'll try.'

Dvd listens, then turns back to Kerry. "David says you two are really inspiring," Dvd relays, pleased. "He says he can't wait to be able to share like you."

Kerry can feel that Cary is— Strangely pleased by that. 'Thank you, David,' Cary thinks, and Kerry relays. 

Dvd looks at where Divad is sitting, then looks surprised. "Really? But you said—" He listens. He looks— Upset? Pleased? It's hard to tell.

"What's Divad saying?" Ptonomy asks.

"Um, he says— We could practice sharing, too," Dvd relays. "Not the way we used to, but— The way Kerry and Cary did. The way— We did yesterday, with the lamp." He listens. "Cooperative sharing," he relays. "David can watch, so— It's easier for him when he's ready."

Dvd gives David a meaningful look. David must be pleased by that, because Dvd gets that happy, shy look that he only gets when David smiles at him.

"We can practice together," Kerry says, pleased herself. "System-to-system."

'System-to-system,' Cary thinks, with reluctant acceptance.


	127. Day 12: The Gateway to Hell.

Oliver takes a deep whiff from his glass, savors the bright juniper of the gin Lenny brought him. He takes a sip. He remembers the ice cube, the quiet of it, the low, constant crackle of the ice. He remembers loud jazz music. He remembers having forgotten everything. 

Another flash of memory hits him. Not from the ice cube or his old life, but— Recent. A drink in his hand and Amahl Farouk at his side, in his head. Travelling in the heat, the baking sun. He takes another sip, another.

He shouldn't rush. He knows when his glass is empty they'll expect him to talk. He doesn't want to talk, but he wants to finish this glass, and then another glass, and then at least several more. And then he'd like to sleep at length and not dream at all, and then wake up and have more gin. If he has to stay in his body, that feels like the most pleasant alternative. Or the least unbearable.

He takes another sip. He listens. The Davids and— The Karies are sitting together, talking, practicing sharing. Oliver's relieved that Cary's feeling better, that all of them are. He prefers happy minds to unhappy ones. Syd is happier, relieved that Cary is better, even though she feels quite guilty about his body. Amy, Lenny, and Ptonomy are silent as always, so Oliver listens further.

Farouk, of course, is silent. 

While Oliver was focused on relaying, on trying to recall his own memories, he paid little attention to the burble of minds beyond, but there they are— Soldiers and scientists, followers of orders. Some of them — the scientists, mostly — are genuinely eager to help. Others are— Less sympathetic. They see no reason to help a mutant, much less a mad one, but they have their orders. Many of them resent their situation, wish they could change it. And a few— 

Oh dear.

Oliver takes another sip of his drink, considers his options. He wonders if he's ever had to deal with this sort of thing before. He probably has. He could ask Cary, but— He's loathe to interrupt. And quite honestly, he's had enough of his own past. Dealing with a crisis of the present is— A refreshing change of pace.

'Ptonomy,' Oliver thinks, calling to the relay link. 'There's a situation you need to be aware of.'

Ptonomy, Amy, and Lenny all look over at him. 'What's wrong?' Ptonomy asks.

'Is David okay?' Amy asks. 

'David's fine,' Oliver thinks. David's a spectator to the sharing practice, but he's observing with great interest. 'There's a— Problem with a few of the Division 3 soldiers.'

Ptonomy straightens up. 'What kind of problem?'

'One I believe should be addressed— Before it becomes a bigger problem,' Oliver thinks. 'Several soldiers are— Planning to take matters into their own hands.'

'Shit,' Ptonomy sighs. 'How far along?'

'Difficult to say,' Oliver admits. 'But their thoughts are— Determined.'

'Okay,' Ptonomy says, and his expression shows that he's thinking again. 'We need to talk to Clark. Oliver, come with me. Lenny, Amy, you got things here?'

'Aye aye, cap'n' Lenny says, confident.

'We'll be fine,' Amy says. 

Ptonomy makes an excuse for them to step out. Cary's reluctant to let Oliver leave without him, partly out of concern for Oliver, but also because he feels better knowing Oliver can hear him. Oliver simply reminds him that he can hear Cary no matter where they go, and that sets Cary at ease.

Oliver wonders if he'll be afraid himself when he's healed. He's not incapable of fear, he thinks, but the whole business seems— Irrelevant. Despite his grief, life and death are irrelevant. He remembers telling that to Farouk. And yet— He feels the urge to— Help. Protect. Perhaps even— To worry. Worry is a kind of fear, he supposes. Concern. Anxiety. Those were all on the emotion wheel they're meant to use. 

He looked at it, curious to see what emotions he's currently capable of feeling, and was pleased that he recognized all of them. But they mostly feel— Abstract, distant, as though— His emotions are still there inside him, like his memories, but with a sort of— Glass wall in the way. A wall of ice, perhaps, quite thick but— Beginning to melt away. Passion, rage, tenderness, shame, astonishment, delight— He knows them, but knowing is not feeling. 

_When I’m in awakeness what do I desire? I desire to fulfill my emotional belly. My whole body, my heart in my fingertips thrill with some old fulfillments._

Some lines of poetry keep coming back to him, again and again. Perhaps they’re not simply tied to memories but to emotions. What emotions resonated so deeply with that poem? Cary gave him a copy of collected works of Ginsberg, hoping it would help. But the full poems are— Complex. Referential. Often full of contradiction and the cruder parts of human nature. Without the context of his own memories, it's hard to say— What particular aspects of them held the most importance.

"Oliver," Ptonomy says, drawing his attention. They've reached Clark's office. Ptonomy doesn't bother to knock. Clark is expecting them.

"Oliver," Clark greets, focused and quietly urgent. "Tell me what you heard. Can you identify them?"

"I'm afraid I don't recognize them," Oliver admits. 

"But they're definitely our men?" Clark presses.

"Yes," Oliver says. "Their minds feel— Close. In the building rather than somewhere else. Three men, all very— Aggressive. They're planning to kill us as well as Farouk."

Clark's eyes narrow. "Us meaning—"

"Mutants," Oliver says, plainly. "David, Syd, myself, Cary and Kerry. The Admiral and you, if necessary. And then get things 'back the way they used to be.'"

"Fantastic," Ptonomy mutters. "We have to deal with this _now_."

"We're dealing with it," Clark says. "Oliver, did you hear what they're planning? Any details?"

"The Choke," Oliver says. Oliver wasn't conscious when the tuning fork was struck in Le Désolé, but he knows how powerful it is. "They plan to set it off, then execute their targets."

Clark relaxes. "Not so urgent after all."

"The Admiral has the Choke," Ptonomy explains. "The Vermillion took it, hid it. No one whose mind can be read knows where it is."

"They know where it is," Oliver points out. "They're planning to steal it tonight."

"They _what_?" Clark says, eyes widening in alarm. 

Ptonomy goes silent, and then: "It's gone. The Choke’s gone."

Clark leans back, rubs his face, angry and frustrated. 'When I find them, I'm going to have those morons boiled alive.' "How?"

Ptonomy looks absolutely livid. "Farouk just teleported to the storage facility and stole it."

"Just now?" Clark asks, astonished.

"Just now," Ptonomy says. 

'God I hate telepathy,' Clark thinks. "Well, that's just great. Now what?"

"Now you thank me," Farouk says, suddenly there with them, standing calm and casual by the wall. He has a drink in his hand, but coffee, not gin. "After all, I just saved your lives. Oh, and— Your mutineers have been dealt with." He smirks, and brushes at his suit like he's removing a speck of dust.

Clark and Ptonomy both turn angry and solemn. The thoughts of the three soldiers have gone silent, and Oliver hears— _Horror_.

"You killed them," Ptonomy says, his fury barely contained. "You turned them to dust."

"And what is the penalty for attempted murder of their commanding officers?" Farouk says, unruffled. 

"And the Choke?" Clark challenges.

"There's a volcano in Ethiopia," Farouk says. "Erta Ale, 'The Gateway to Hell.' I thought it a suitable resting place for that monstrosity. Come now. Did you really think I would let you use it a second time?"

It's obvious from Ptonomy and Clark's expressions that they did.

"Secrets are so hard to keep," Farouk says, smirking. "But I do find all this quite amusing. I need my entertainment, after all, now that David is feeling better."

"Torturing him every night isn't enough?" Ptonomy challenges.

Farouk's smirk spreads into a grin. "Would you like to know what we’re doing together? All you have to do is let him remember."

"Never," Ptonomy tells him, certain.

Farouk tuts. "Taking away his memories. It's really sick, what you're doing to him."

"Whatever _you're_ doing to him, David doesn't want it," Ptonomy declares.

"And how will he know if you never let him remember?" Farouk challenges. "When remembering is all he longs for? But you've always enjoyed hurting people for their own good."

"Is your fake moralizing supposed to make us feel bad?" Clark says, unimpressed. "You killed three of my men."

"A just execution," Farouk insists. "And are they not our men? I'm part of Division 3, yes?"

"You're a contractor," Clark says. "Not part of our command structure. Unless you'd like to enlist?"

"And David?" Farouk asks, taking a step closer. "Is David a ‘contractor’? An employee? A prisoner, a slave?"

"I take it you have a preference?" Clark says.

"Lie to him all you want. When the crown comes off—" Farouk shrugs. "What are your titles to a king? _À un dieu?_ Please, let your 'command structure' know that— The Gateway to Hell is open for all their weapons."

Clark doesn't like to show his emotions or even think them, but he can't hide the fear in his eyes. "I'll pass that on," he says, blandly.

" _Très bon_ ," Farouk says, and takes a sip of his coffee. He looks directly at Oliver, though his eyes are still hidden behind his sunglasses. "And you? Have we reached your moment of attack? What was your little riddle, one plus one?"

Oliver takes a sip of his gin. "It was." 

Farouk gives a knowing chuckle. "And how are you, my friend? Are you enjoying this 'healing'?"

"Not especially," Oliver admits. 

"A shame," Farouk says. "I’m quite enjoying mine. _Körper und Seele wieder vereint_."

Body and soul reunited, Oliver thinks. Has he always known German? He seems to know it now. "Which body?" he asks, curious. "Yours or David's?"

Farouk laughs. "I've missed your sly wit. Do you know, it's said that— Once upon a time, humanity was so strong that the gods trembled in fear. To punish us, they split every human in two, divided us to make us weak. Now we are each half a soul, forever seeking our other half."

"Aristophanes," Ptonomy states. "The Symposium."

Farouk seems pleased by the recognition. "I enjoy David's company, but he has never been— _Un savant._ "

"You should consider talking to Divad," Oliver suggests. "Though I suppose you're more interested in the arts than the sciences?"

Farouk's smile grows more forced. "Tell me, what was it Hephaestus asked the lovers?"

"'Do you desire to be wholly one?'" Ptonomy recites. "'Always day and night to be in one another's company? For if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one.'"

"'That two should become one,'" Farouk continues, longing in his voice. "'One soul instead of two.' Perhaps that is the wholeness we all seek?"

"I'm good with my own soul, thanks," Clark says.

Farouk turns to him. "Then perhaps you should heed the greater lesson: If you are not obedient to the gods, then—" He makes a vertical chopping motion with his free hand. "Though perhaps you would welcome separation from your scarred half."

'Great, he's getting bored,' Clark thinks, with dread.

"Not yet," Farouk says. "But I suggest you remember our arrangement."

"You agreed to let us save him," Ptonomy says, firmly.

"I agreed to let you suffer with him," Farouk corrects. "What was it David said? 'I feel safe'? ‘This is not torture'?" He tuts and shakes his head. "Unfortunate." He sips his coffee. 

Clark and Ptonomy look at each other. Oliver doesn't hear anything, but some message seems to be conveyed and received. 

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "How about David's possession trauma? We work on that, you'll get your suffering."

"'Possession trauma,'" Farouk mocks, amused. "Yes, that will do. I'll be watching." And then he's gone. Back to his room, presumably, to sit and watch and drink his coffee.

"Jesus," Clark mutters, shaken.

Ptonomy doesn't say anything, but he looks intensely determined.

"Okay," Clark says, gathering himself again. "Damage control. We need to figure out how those soldiers found the Choke. Do we know who they are?"

Ptonomy's eyes go distant. "Got it," he says. "Sending it over."

Clark goes still. "Damn it. If they'd just—" He shakes his head. 

"The Admiral is working on the Choke," Ptonomy reports. "Someone human must have seen it, spread the word."

"A lot of people aren't happy about our arrangement," Clark admits.

"I know," Ptonomy sighs. "Cary's right, there's— Too much institutional momentum here."

"Nothing's gonna change if no one makes it change," Clark reminds him.

"Shouldn't I be the one telling you that?" Ptonomy counters.

Clark shrugs. "The one positive to come out of this is breathing space. Some very powerful people were getting— Impatient."

"We're in the middle of a city."

"Acceptable losses," Clark admits. 

"They do know he's indestructible, right?" 

"You know the type. Bomb first, ask questions later."

"Fantastic," Ptonomy mutters. "The models still say David is the only way we get out of this."

"Can you share those models?"

Ptonomy just gives him a look.

"I know," Clark says. "But I don't have to be a mind reader to know what they're thinking."

"Mutants protecting mutants?"

"What else do you expect from humans who only want to protect humans?" Clark asks. "They need proof."

"We can't afford to give it," Ptonomy says.

"Well, Farouk just saved our lives twice," Clark says, dryly. "Not that I'm feeling especially grateful. But keeping secrets from him is putting us at risk from everyone else."

"Will those deaths keep your men in line, or will it make more trouble?"

"I'll try to make it the former," Clark says. "But the longer this takes, the more trigger-happy everyone's gonna get. The world’s putting a hell of a lot of trust in you, Wallace. Don't let us down."

Somehow this amuses Ptonomy. "I guess now's not the best time to talk about that promotion?"

"If you pull this off, trust me, it's not gonna be a problem," Clark says. "Though it'll be hard to explain that the guy who came up with the idea is now trapped in the body of a nineteen year old girl."

"We're working on it," Ptonomy sighs. "And if this is the new normal— It's not the weirdest thing the world will have to accept. What about David’s status? We need that done.”

“Legal’s cranky,” Clark says. “Apparently DID officially makes David _non compos mentis_. It was suggested that we transfer Amy’s power of attorney to us.”

“I don’t need the Admiral’s help to know that’s a bad idea,” Ptonomy warns. 

“I know,” Clark says, showing his palms in surrender. “I told them.”

“What about the Karies?”

“I’m not sure if that revelation makes things easier or harder,” Clark admits. “Look, this diagnosis has been used to justify insanity defenses. The pushback is that David should be put somewhere quiet and green.”

“With the crown permanently fused to his skull?” Ptonomy says, annoyed. “Bombs aren’t going to solve this. Trying to play this their way is going to end the world.”

“The Division heads aren’t used to being kept in the dark,” Clark says. “It’s making them cranky.”

“Are you running a military organization or a daycare?” 

Clark gives an acknowledging nod. “A question I ask myself every day. We both have work to do. You go start some fires, I’ll put some out.”

Oliver follows Ptonomy into the hall. When they reach the elevator, Ptonomy turns to him. “Oliver, I'm sorry, but— Our conversation will have to wait."

"What a shame," Oliver says, dryly. He takes another sip— And realizes all the gin is gone. Tragic. "Could I get another?"

"Not right now," Ptonomy says. "We're going to need your help again. We can't afford to miss anything the Davids think. Can you handle it?"

"As long as there's gin later, yes," Oliver decides. He could always pop out and get a refill himself when things are calmer. He’s never had any trouble getting a drink when he wants one. That much he definitely remembers. 

“Your plan,” Ptonomy says. “One plus one. What was that about?”

“Should I say it?” Oliver asks.

“Farouk couldn’t hear your thoughts before? When he was inside you?”

“No.”

“Then send it into the mainframe,” Ptonomy says. “I don’t know if it’ll do us much good, but we need all the help we can get.”


	128. Day 12: There's never going to be another Benny.

Back in Clockworks, David liked to watch the other patients. He saw them having treatments and sessions, and sometimes he’d get to watch them leave. But looking back— There was never any real sense that anyone was actually getting better. 

David only really realizes that now, because he can see _everyone_ getting better. He sees Lenny and Syd comfortably sitting together, working on their notebooks and their touch therapy. He sees Cary and Kerry learning how to share their body, and Divad and Dvd jostling like unruly brothers as they learn a new way of sharing. He sees Amy's pride as she watches over them, calm after the grieving he shared with her. And most surprising of all is what he sees in himself.

He's been writing in his mental notebook, thinking about everything that's brought them to this moment, and doing that helps him feel— Good. In control. He knows he has a lot of difficult work ahead of him but it all feels— Manageable. He knows he won't have to face any of it alone, that he has people who love him and will help him through. And he has a system that will always be there for him, like it always has. 

He's always felt so alone. But that was just one of Farouk's delusions, one of the parasites that tried to eat him alive. And now David feels like— That delusion has been plucked out of his head and crushed under a shoe. He's not alone, he's never been alone, he'll _never_ be alone. He's loved and there's no shame in love.

He remembers— Lenny told him to change his story. That Farouk doesn't get to choose who David is, _David_ does. That no matter what Farouk did to him and his system, they never stopping fighting, never stopped trying to get help. They never belonged to Farouk and they never will. 

It's still a lot to believe, all those new ideas. But he thinks he's starting to believe them.

He looks at the paper with his Syd work. He thinks he's ready to show it to her, to talk to her about it. To start the work of fixing their relationship together. Not having the relay for a while made him realize— It's not that he wants her to hear his thoughts. He just wants to be able to trust her again. He wants to share his new life with her. He wants to be able to sit with her and his headmates and have all of them able to talk to each other, in all the ways that means.

So he crossed off 'Share relay with Syd' and replaced it with 'Trust Syd again' and 'Be friends with Syd as a system.' 

He wants to be able to show her that. He will, once it's his turn in their body again. It's hard to wait, cut off from the world as a mental projection. But when he's inside, he needs to focus on— Inside things. System things. He thinks— He understands Kerry better now, and Dvd. He might even understand— The David he used to be. Even without his memories. Because— He's the same David. He's changed, he's grown, but he's the same. He makes the same kinds of choices, loves the same kinds of people, feels the same kinds of feelings. Whatever it is that makes him who he is— Has always made him who he is. 

Would he have been that David without Farouk? If he'd been kept safe, if he'd grown up healthy and happy? Who would he have been if— If he'd never become a system? If the three of them— Fused— Would they become that David? 

There's no way to answer that. But maybe that's okay. What he has now matters more to him than some fantasy of a life without pain.

He doesn't have to be normal. He can just be— What he is. And his friends and his family and his headmates— They won't love him any less for that. Because they're complicated people, too, and— It's okay to be complicated. He can be complicated and still be a person, still deserve— What everyone else has. Love, compassion. A home.

He writes that down. It feels important.

He sets aside his pen and watches some more, enjoying this— New contentment. And then Ptonomy and Oliver come back, and Ptonomy looks— Alarmingly serious. He tells Syd and Lenny to join them as he heads for the sitting area. Dvd steps out, leaving Divad in their body, and sits between him and the Karies. Ptonomy and Oliver take their usual loveseat. Syd and Lenny take the beanbag chairs.

"There's been a development," Ptonomy tells them. "And I think it's time we all got on the same page. David, would you might switching with Divad? I'd like you to be embodied for this."

Well. That doesn't sound good. Divad goes to sit next to Amy, and David steps into their body. 

"First of all, I've asked Oliver to start relaying to the mainframe again," Ptonomy says. "So David, I did hear the progress you just made. That was solid work, and I'm glad you wrote it down because we're going to need it."

"What's going on?" David asks, increasingly worried.

"Farouk," Ptonomy says.

"What now?" David asks, dreading the answer.

"Let's start from the beginning," Ptonomy says. "David, when all this started— Division 3 made a deal. Farouk agreed to help us contain you so you wouldn't end the world." When David starts to protest, Ptonomy puts up a hand. "I know. But you need to hear this. Once we actually started your therapy, we realized our mistake. So we decided to find a way to kill him ourselves."

"Did you?" David asks, hopeful.

"We made plans," Ptonomy says. "But when he isn't watching you or torturing you in your dreams, Farouk's doing everything he can to stop us, to sabotage those plans. The only thing he hasn't interfered with is your therapy. And to get that—" He hesitates. "Farouk interpreted our agreement as— Therapy as torture. And that was fine as long as you felt— Helpless and in pain. But as of today— You don't feel that therapy is torture anymore."

"Oh," David says, realizing. It's awful but it makes sense. "So what do we do? Take the crown off, or—"

"Do you feel ready to face him?" Ptonomy asks.

"I don't know," David admits. He thinks about his to-do list. "I guess we haven't— Made much progress on my— Possession trauma."

"Not as much as we need to," Ptonomy agrees. "Oliver and I just spoke with Farouk. He's agreed to let us work on that because he knows it'll be painful for you. But this arrangement isn't going to last much longer. Whatever Farouk is planning, we think he's going to move soon. So we have to get you as ready as possible. And not just you but your whole system, and the relationships your system has with us."

David looks at Divad and Dvd. They both look determined.

"If the relay's back, why can't Cary and I hear it?" Kerry asks.

"Because we're going to do things a little differently," Ptonomy says. "When any of the Davids step out, they become mental projections. So with Oliver's help, we can do for them the same thing he did for Cary. Oliver?"

Oliver closes his eyes, concentrates, and then—

Everyone but the Davids startles, stares in amazement.

"Holy shit," Lenny says, and grins. "Triple trouble."

"Everything will look the same to the three of you," Ptonomy tells the Davids. "But now your mental projections are visible— And audible."

"They can hear us?" Dvd asks. 'But they can't hear our thoughts, right?'

"The mainframe can still hear your thoughts," Amy explains. "But the whole world can see you and hear your voices."

"You're see-through, like Cary was," Kerry says, fascinated.

"Hey," Divad says, waving to everyone. 'They can see me,' he thinks. 'This is amazing.' "Thanks, Oliver."

"Yeah, thanks," Dvd says. He smiles at Kerry and she smiles back. 

David sees Syd staring at the three of them, wide-eyed. But she doesn't say anything.

"Divad," Amy says, looking at him and Dvd with feeling. She reaches for Divad but her hand goes through him. 

"Hey, Green and Yellow," Kerry realizes, pointing at their shirts. "You guys are still color coded?"

"That's the outfit David was wearing in the desert," Lenny realizes. "You haven't changed for what, two weeks?"

"We're mental projections, what's it matter?" Dvd defends. "You wore the same outfit for months," he tells Kerry. "And those were real clothes!"

"They were always clean when I stepped out," Kerry defends.

"This takes work for Oliver to sustain," Ptonomy warns. "He's doing this on top of the relay."

"Why do we need the relay if everyone can hear us?" Dvd asks, suspicious.

"Because I need to hear your thoughts for your therapy," Ptonomy says. "And your therapy is how we're going to stop Farouk."

"Okay, fine," Dvd sighs. 'But I don't have to like it.'

"What about my thoughts?" Syd asks.

"Oliver?" Ptonomy asks.

Oliver shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, that's too much on top of everything else," Ptonomy says. "But if you need a telepathic session, we'll make that the priority."

Syd gives a frustrated little huff but nods. She looks at David, at Dvd, at Divad. David thinks— She's taking them in. To be fair, it's a lot to take in.

'David, you wanted us to talk to her together?' Divad thinks to him.

David wonders if it's too soon. 

'Hey, Ptonomy,' Divad thinks. 'Can we have some Syd time?'

'Of course,' Ptonomy says through the relay. 'David, it's up to you. How do you want to handle this?'

David thinks about his to-do list. He wants to work with Syd and he wants her to talk to all three of them at once. He wasn't expecting it to be right now, but— The possession work will be rough. That's why Farouk's letting them do it, because— It'll be torture. Or at least— Upsetting enough to satisfy the sadist who used to live inside him.

That thought alone is enough to make the decision. "Um, Syd," David starts.

"Yes?" Syd asks, quietly eager.

David softens. "Can we— Talk? About what happened? With— My headmates?" 

Syd looks to Ptonomy. 

"Do you need my help?" Ptonomy asks David.

"I think I need to do this myself," David decides. "But everyone can stay. Um." He looks for his physical notebook, takes the paper out of the back. Is he ready for this? He has to be. They're running out of time. 

He looks at the paper and reads it again. It's a lot. Where should he start?

'Oh, I know where we should start,' Dvd thinks, darkly.

'Dvd,' Divad warns. "How about— Start with your goals?" he offers David.

"My goals," David echoes. Right. That's a good idea, thank you. "Syd, I want to— Address what went wrong. I want us to be able to— Forgive each other and ourselves. I want to be able to trust you again."

Syd nods, taking that in. "You don't trust me now?" she asks.

"No," David admits. He meets her eyes, then looks down at the paper. "You and— Future You and— The things you did because of Farouk—" He pauses, struggling. "To be honest I haven't really processed any of this."

"It's okay," Syd says, gently.

David concentrates, thinking back to his session with Ptonomy. About— Syd leaving him in the desert. Choosing Farouk over him. "You chose Farouk over me," he says, finally. "Even before the desert." He stops, breathes. "I never wanted to help that monster, but you made me. And when I needed you, you took his side again and again and—" His throat is tight but he keeps going. "Every you took his side. And I don't— How can I trust you if that's what you are?"

No one say anything. Syd stares at David, taken aback.

"Is that what you think?" Syd asks. "That I took his side?"

David nods.

"David," Syd says, immediately frustrated. "I didn't take his side. I took— The side of saving the world. The side of everyone not dying. I took _my_ side."

"If we were ever going to end the world," Dvd says, angrily, "it was because of Farouk. You taking his side is what made all this bullshit happen!"

“You’re upset,” Syd says, deliberately calm.

“Of course we’re upset!” Dvd says. “You used us and lied to us and then you tried to kill us! You don’t love us, you never loved us.”

“No,” David insists. “She loved us. Loves us. It was just— After Farouk messed with her head.”

Dvd scoffs. “I’ll tell you when she stopped loving us. It was when we got back and we didn’t do what she said.”

“Then you admit she loved us!” David says. 

“I _admit_ Syd only loved us as long as we rolled over and gave her everything she wanted,” Dvd declares. “I bet Farouk didn’t have to do anything to her to make her shoot us. She—“

“Dvd,” Divad says, firmly. “Your paranoid delusions are not helping.”

“Are you seriously calling me delusional?” Dvd says, outraged. “She shot us!”

“Okay, time out,” Ptonomy says. “Obviously everyone has strong feelings about what happened. But accusations and name-calling are not going to get us through this.”

Dvd crosses his arms and scowls. Divad looks exasperated. Syd is closed-off and hurt. David feels like all their progress just vanished. God, how are they going to stop Farouk when they can’t even have a conversation?

“David,” Ptonomy says. “It’s okay. This isn’t a setback, it’s just the process.”

“You upset him,” Divad chides Dvd. 

“I’m protecting him!” Dvd insists. “What, are you on her side now? Maybe you should go be a system with _her_.”

“You’re angry at Syd, we get it,” Divad says, tersely. “But what do you thinks gonna happen? Do you think Farouk’s gonna ignore that? You wanna actually protect David? Then get over yourself and help us fix our relationships so Farouk can’t use them against us _again!_ ”

Dvd scowls but he doesn’t argue. 

“Sorry about that,” Divad says, calming. 

“It’s okay,” Ptonomy says. “David? Syd? How are you doing?”

David gives a small whimper. He forces himself to look at Syd. She’s definitely not happy. He hates it when she’s upset. He hates it when anyone’s upset but Syd—

“Syd?” Ptonomy prompts.

“This is awful,” Syd admits, tightly. 

“I know it’s hard,” Ptonomy says, understanding. “But the the first steps are always the hardest. Let’s see if we can make a little more progress.”

Syd gives a short nod.

“Divad, how do you feel about Syd?” Ptonomy asks. 

“Me?” Divad asks, surprised. He shifts, thinks. “Look, I’m angry with her, too.”

“Ha!” Dvd cries. 

“ _But_ ,” Divad continues, forcefully. “I know that she regrets her part in what happened. I know she’s trying very hard to change so she doesn’t make the same mistakes, just like we are. She’s been here for us even though we hurt her and she deserves our support.”

Syd’s tension visibly eases. She gives Divad the tiniest smile. He musters a small smile back. Dvd glares at both of them. 

“Dvd?” Ptonomy says. “You have something to say?”

“Divad’s only forgiving her because he’s just as guilty as her,” Dvd declares.

“Is that a bad thing?” Ptonomy asks him. 

Dvd falters, then rallies. “Of course it’s a bad thing. They’re in on it together.”

“‘It’ being?” Ptonomy prompts. “Forgiveness?”

Dvd scowls. 

“Everyone here has made mistakes,” Ptonomy tells him. “Some of them very serious. And you know you’re not exempt from that, Dvd. You absolutely know it. Don’t you want forgiveness, too? From David?”

That finally puts a crack in Dvd’s defenses. But he doesn’t reply. 

“Dvd?” Ptonomy prompts. “Do you want David to forgive you?”

“Yeah,” Dvd mutters. 

“Then you need to work on your forgiveness for others,” Ptonomy says. “For Divad and for Syd. Okay?”

Dvd grunts what could charitably be called a yes. 

"Everyone here has the right to feel what they feel," Ptonomy tells them. "But remember why we're doing this. Farouk is watching this right now. All we are is entertainment to him. We're things, toys to be played with. He wants us to stay angry with each other to make it easy for him to use us. But we don't want to be used. Right?"

There's a general murmur of 'no's.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "David. Do you really think that Syd wanted to choose Farouk over you? Or do you recognize that she was trying to do what was best for the world?"

David struggles with that. "Um. Yeah, I guess— She was trying to save the world," he manages.

"Do you believe what Future Syd claimed was true?" Ptonomy asks him. "Do you think, in the original timeline, you ended the world?"

David hugs himself. "I don't— How can I answer that?" he asks, genuinely. "I couldn't read her mind, I couldn't— I believed her, I trusted her. But— I don't want to end the world! I never wanted to hurt anyone! I got put on trial for— Something I never did! And she stood there and—" he cuts himself off.

"You have a lot of anger about your intervention," Ptonomy says.

"Yes," David says, firmly. "That whole thing was a joke. It was Farouk ruining my life and gloating about it."

"The intervention wasn't just about Future Syd's claim," Ptonomy reminds him. "It was also about your actions in the past."

"Yeah," David says, angrily. "Yeah, I screwed up. I shouldn't have wiped Syd's memories, and I should have left her alone that night. I get that. But you've got this all-seeing, all-knowing mainframe and did you bother to rewind a few minutes? To see what happened before I tried to undo what Farouk did to us? No, you were all afraid of me and you were so happy to jump at the chance to finally lock me up and—" He cuts himself off, angry and upset and fighting tears.

"You're right," Ptonomy says, after a pause. "We didn't bother to rewind. We didn't question what we were shown, from the past or the future. We were told a story about you and we just accepted it. We didn't trust you or treat you as a friend. The way we behaved was cruel and unfair. I'm sorry, David. I truly am."

"I'm sorry, too," Syd says, solemnly.

"Me and Cary are really sorry," Kerry says. 

"And I apologize on behalf of the Admiral and Division 3," Ptonomy adds. 

David struggles with his feelings. He's been refusing this anger for so long, drowning it in guilt and anger at his own mistakes. But he was furious at the trial and he feels it all again now. He just wants to be angry. He wants to be furious and— And hurt everyone who's ever hurt him.

And that's what makes him stop. Remembering that feeling, the pure ecstatic white-hot bliss of justified rage. It's not a feeling he likes, after the fact. It makes him sick. But for a few delirious hours, it was _everything_.

And that rage, and all his powers—

He could absolutely end the world. If he was angry enough, pushed far enough, and there was nothing to stop him. He could end the world. And that's— 

Cold, hard reality.

"Shit," he mutters. He leans forward and rests his face in his hands. 

And that's why everyone is afraid of him. Even Syd. She was so afraid of him in the desert when she raised that gun. She was eager to shoot him because she was afraid. Is she still afraid? Are they all still afraid? Maybe the only reason they're all so kind to him now is the crown. Because he's a helpless victim and not— A rabid monster they have to put down.

After he saves them, _if_ he can save them— Will they all be afraid of him again? How's he supposed to— How can he live with that? He has so much power and all he wants to do is help but— That's what makes him a monster?

"David," Ptonomy says, concerned. "What you're worried about— It's not true."

"Don't," David warns, raising his head. Hot tears run down his face. "Don't lie to me." He gives a bitter smile. "We didn't even get to the possession trauma and Farouk's already getting what he wants." He always does.

"You want the truth, David?" Ptonomy asks. "The truth is that yes, people are afraid of you. When you get the crown off, you're going to hear that. But that power you have, your determination to help— That's what got us here. That's what stopped the war and it's going to help us do a hell of a lot more if we can just get through this. And that's the thing about power, David. Any power, not just mutants. Power's a big responsibility. It cuts both ways, and the more of it you have, the scarier it can be. But the answer isn't to give up, it's to use our power as wisely as we can, to act with respect and care. And you are capable of that, I know you are. I know that's what you want your legacy to the world to be. Not destruction."

His legacy? David lived his life expecting his death to bring— Nothing but relief to the few people around him who even cared. All he ever remembered being was a failure, a disappointment, a disaster who dragged everyone else down with him. He remembers— Knowing it was the right choice, when he hanged himself. That Philly and Amy and Lenny— _Benny_ would be sad and then— Move on. He's always known that everyone else would be better off without him.

"Fuck that," Dvd declares, and David turns to see he's crying, too. "You wanna talk delusions? That's the shit beetle's delusion and you are _not allowed_ to let it eat you alive."

"Dvd's right," Divad says. "When you think like that, what does it do? It makes it easy for Farouk. It makes you hurt yourself and your system. It stops you from feeling all the good things you have."

"Cary wants to talk," Kerry says. "He says— He knows what it's like to feel despair. To be terrified of— The potential of your abilities as well as— The potential of failure. Ptonomy's right, you have— So much power, more than we can truly conceive. But despite all you've suffered, you've always held enough compassion to equal that power. You are a good man, David. Don't let the pain win. The world needs you. And more importantly— You're my friend and I don't want to lose you. I'm so sorry for how we treated you. I let my fear win. But I've always been a coward." Kerry frowns. "Cary, you're not a coward. It's okay to be scared when things are scary. That's what we're supposed to feel! And all the stuff that happened— It was really scary. That's why Farouk did it, right? To mess us up. He shoved us down, but we're all getting back up so we can kick his ass, right?" She looks directly at David. "Right?"

"Um. Right?" David echoes, helplessly. It's really hard to say no to Kerry when she gets like that.

He sits back, shaky. It's been a while since— He felt like he had to be pulled back from a cliff. He still doesn't feel steady. But the despair isn't— All-consuming.

"David, what you're feeling," Ptonomy says. "It's healthy to be afraid. You feel that because you don't want to hurt anyone. That rage you're afraid of? You don't feel that rage when you're in control. But Farouk can make us do things we don't want to do. That's why we have to stop him. For you to truly have control over your own life, to stop him from pushing you until you break— We have to stop him."

"I know," David says, tiredly. "It just feels— Impossible, sometimes."

"It's very possible," Ptonomy assures him. "You're already doing it. You've come so far, David. We've all come a long way. And none of us are facing this alone."

David knows that. He knows he's not alone. He felt it so strongly, and— It's still there, the feeling. The certainty. He got turned around but he didn't lose it. He looks around at his friends, his family, his headmates. 

He looks at Syd.

"Syd," David tries, needing to— Reach something. "I know you were— Trying to save the world. Maybe you were right and— I really did kill everyone." He pauses as the horror of that grazes him. "If I had to chose between— My own death and— Everyone else— Of course you made the right decision."

Dvd gives an outraged squeak, but doesn't say anything.

"Whatever I became, in that timeline," David continues. "I don't want that. So I guess— I do trust you to save me from— That. But." He looks down, sees the paper. "I guess I thought— You believed in me. But you didn't. You didn't trust me, you didn't— It was all just—" He shakes his head. "I still don't understand why you did any of it. You from the future. Why you— Tricked me and— Let Amy die and— Why you couldn't have just— Helped me, the way I'm being helped now. Why didn't you help me?"

Syd seems at a loss. "I'm not her."

"But you are," David insists. "You're the same person. And you— You agreed with her! Maybe you didn't take Farouk's side, but you took hers. Amy died and— You didn't care, neither of you cared!"

"Of course I cared," Syd insists.

"No secrets," David says, his anger creeping back. "Why do you keep pretending I couldn't hear everything you thought?"

Syd has the honesty to look guilty. "Because I was trying to ignore the fact that you could hear my thoughts," she says, calmly. "Because that terrified me. It still does. I can't— Protect myself the way I always have. Not with you."

"I never wanted to hurt you," David says, pleading for her to understand.

"I know," Syd says. "But I knew you could. Not just because of your powers. Because we loved each other. And to be honest— That's what scared me the most. So I had to hurt you before you hurt me."

"That's awful," David says, recoiling.

"I'm not a very nice person," Syd admits. "You're right. I didn't care about Amy or Lenny. I thought you were the only person I could ever have, so I didn't want you to have anyone but me. And Dvd's right. I didn't want you to have any choices. I was afraid that if you did, you'd choose to leave me."

"Syd, that's— Insane," David says, at a loss.

"It's BPD," Syd admits. "And a fucked-up childhood. I'm— Trying to be better. To trust people, to— Allow myself to be loved. To not— Need to always be in control. But it's as hard for me as— Not hurting yourself is hard for you. And maybe that means— We shouldn't be together. I don't want to hurt you, David. I don't want us to hurt each other."

"So you're just— Giving up?" David asks, disbelieving. 

"I don't want to be used by that monster," Syd says, certain. "I don't want him to hurt you again. And I don't want to lose you.”

"Then don't," David says. "Syd, I— I love you."

"And I love you," Syd says, plainly. "But love isn't enough. I don't want to be another Benny, David. I can't be that."

David doesn't know what to say. He just feels— Confused and frustrated and hurt and— He feels like he's losing Syd all over again. Even though he was so angry with her before— 

"There's never going to be another Benny," Divad says, with absolute certainty. "The only reason that happened was because of Farouk, because David didn't have me and Dvd. Benny was just— Farouk's way of having David in every way he could."

"I don't want to be like Farouk either," Syd insists.

"Then stop thinking you know what's best for David," Divad tells her. "If David says he loves you and wants to be with you, then believe him. Do the work and give it a real chance. Do you think Dvd will just let you hurt David?"

"Never," Dvd declares.

"Maybe you are afraid for David," Divad continues. "But I think the truth is you're afraid for yourself. You're afraid loving David, trusting him, will get _you_ hurt. And you'd rather risk whatever Farouk will do to you than be genuinely vulnerable with the man you love."

To David's astonishment, Divad's words hit home. Syd stares at him, speechless.

"David's working on his NOs," Divad tells her. "And if he has any trouble, we'll back him up. So what's it gonna be, Barrett? You chicken?" He makes clucking sounds, mocking her.

"Chicken," Dvd smirks. 

"Are you— Are you daring me to work things out with David?" Syd asks, surprised.

"I'd like to see you try," Dvd says, menacingly. 

And again, to David's astonishment— It's what Syd needed to hear. She relaxes— Not a lot, but enough. She looks at Divad and Dvd with— Relief? Gratitude? _What?_

"Okay," Syd says, calm and— Suddenly determined.

"What the hell just happened?" David asks, completely at a loss.

"We got your girlfriend back," Dvd says, proudly.


	129. Day 12: You got the best of both worlds.

"Dvd, move out of the way," Kerry says. "Me and Cary gotta hug David."

Dvd obligingly moves, and stands with his legs through the coffee table as the Karies give David a huge hug, which David gratefully returns.

Syd feels a familiar spike of jealousy. It hurts seeing David turn to everyone for comfort but her. It hurts seeing something she can't have. The only people who can safely touch her are dead. What does that make her?

"Hey." Syd looks up and sees Amy giving her a smile. Syd looks away, ashamed of what she just admitted. She didn't care when Amy died. She was even a little glad. It meant she had more of David all to herself— Or that's what she wanted it to mean. 

Amy gets up, walks over. She rests her hand on Syd's shoulder. Syd instinctively flinches away, but Amy's hand follows her. Stays. Syd feels a little bit calmer. 

She looks up to see Dvd looking down at her, somewhere between curious and judging. She looks over at Divad. He's looking at David and the Karies with a soft, relieved expression. Then he looks over at Dvd, at Syd. 

Syd wanted to be able to see all the Davids at once. And boy, she's got them. She feels like Dvd and Divad can see right through her. It's funny because they're the ones who are transparent.

"Let's take a break," Ptonomy tells them. "Karies, you feel like a trip to the cafeteria? You two can choose our lunch."

"This whole eating thing just never stops," Kerry says, exasperated. David huffs a laugh, amused, and that makes Kerry happy, too. She pulls David into another hug. "We'll be right back, okay?"

"I think I've got enough people looking after me," David says, wryly. 

Kerry gives everyone a look that says they'd better do just that, then she joins Ptonomy and they leave the lab.

David slumps back on the sofa, looking wrung out. 

"That was a rough one," Lenny says, sympathetic. 

"It'll get rougher," David sighs. But then he gets a determined look. 

Whatever he's thinking, it makes everyone else get a determined look, too. Syd realizes that with the Karies gone, she's the only one who can't hear David's thoughts. Again.

"Hey, that legacy thing," Lenny tells David. "Maybe that's something for your wish list. You need something long-term, right?"

"Um, yeah," David says. He glances over at Divad. "But I'm not sure what that actually means."

"It means what you leave behind," Divad says. "You can be like the shit beetle, ruining everyone's lives. Or you can be like Cary."

"The new Summerland thing, right?" Dvd says. 

"Division 4," Divad says. "But that can't be the official name. The Divisions are a secret organization."

"Yeah, that's gonna last," Dvd scoffs. "World fulla telepaths? Talk about a delusion." He walks out of the coffee table and sits down next to Divad. He slumps, mirroring David.

"Cary wants all of us to be part of it," Divad says. "He thinks we can really help people there. Do a lot of good. How's that for a legacy?"

"Sounds nice," David says, a little wistful. His eyes unfocus, and when they focus again— He looks at Syd. He keeps looking at her, not challenging or inspecting, just— Looking at her. And then all the Davids are looking at her.

"You guys remember I can see you, right?" Syd says.

Dvd and Divad falter, and David turns to look at them. "This may take some getting used to," Divad admits.

"Is that what you've been doing?" Syd asks. "Staring at people when they can't see you?"

"Got a problem with that?" Dvd challenges.

Syd shrugs. "If you want to talk— We can just talk," she offers.

"We already talked," Dvd says. "You want to talk more?" He gives an exasperated huff.

Amy laughs behind her hand. "Sorry, it's just— You and Kerry are so alike."

"Of course we are," Dvd says, proudly. "We're practically headmates."

"I think it's a good idea," Divad says. "Talking. Not— Session work, but just— All of us being together now that we can."

Divad gives Dvd a nudge. Dvd rolls his eyes. 

Amy lets go of Syd and takes the seat next to Oliver. "Oliver, you holding up okay?"

"Fine, thank you," Oliver says. "Though I could use a drink."

"Tell me about it," Lenny sighs. 

Syd feels the same. Especially when she realizes David is staring at her again. "David?" she prompts. He's been avoiding looking at her so much. And now he's staring.

"Sorry," David says, and rubs his face. He looks at the sofa and realizes he has it to himself. "Is it okay if I lie down? I'm just—" 

Amy gets up and motions for David to scoot over. She sits at the end and gestures again, and David lies down with his head on her lap, careful of the crown. He's lying on his side and he closes his eyes, opens them halfway, and looks at Syd again. Syd realizes he doesn't have the energy for much, but— He wants to stay with her. 

Some knot of tension in her relaxes. 

"Everything's okay," Amy soothes, gently stroking his neck, his shoulder. David's eyes close a little more, but not all the way.

Syd gives him a small smile, and the corner of David's mouth twitches up. 

It's strange, she thinks, that they can all be so relaxed even though Farouk just threatened them. But he's been watching all this time. It feels like— The lab is their territory, not his. He's never invaded this space, even though he obviously could. She wonders again what he's planning. She thinks about Kerry making sure they're protecting David. She thinks they all feel the same way. 

She realizes she's not the only one watching David. Dvd and Divad and Lenny are all staring, and David must be tired to not notice that. The stroke of Amy's hand lulls him, and in no time at all, his eyes close and his breathing evens out.

"Shit," Dvd says, suddenly. "His dreams—"

"I got it," Divad says. "I'm not making him sleep, but if he goes into REM I'll keep him out until it's over."

Dvd slumps back, relieved. "I want him dead," he declares. "I want him gone. I want him _obliterated_. I want every one of his atoms erased from existence."

"Big talker," Lenny teases. 

"I'll do it," Dvd promises. "When we get that crown off and we can finally go after that asshole, he's _done_."

"When Dvd's not staring at people or pining over David, he's usually planning Farouk's death," Divad explains.

"And what do you do?" Syd asks. 

"Oh, I think too much," Divad admits. "Kind of a— Hamster wheel situation. It helps to have something to do. A problem to solve."

"Like we're short on problems," Dvd says.

Divad gives a resigned shrug. "What do you like to do? When things are quiet?"

"Usually?" Syd says. "Read. Sit alone and drink. Make myself miserable." Just like Mom. 

"Fun hobby," Lenny says. "I don't do quiet. Problem solved."

“I’ve always found it soothing,” Amy says. “Not that I ever had enough time. I was always so busy until— Ben and I were moved.” She stops as grief creases her face, but she focuses on David and recovers. “I had a garden. Rows of sunflowers.”

“David loves gardens, too,” Syd says, though of course all of them know that. “New Summerland should have a garden.”

“That’s a lovely idea,” Amy says, pleased. “And gardens are very therapeutic, I’m sure it would help a lot of people.”

“Ame’s been making plans,” Lenny says.

“I suppose I’m like you, Divad,” Amy says. “I like to keep busy. And with Cary’s difficulties— I’ve been researching mental health facilities, the best ones in the world. Learning what they do that others don’t. I— Missed the signs with Clockworks.” 

She gives Divad and Dvd and apologetic look. Divad accepts it, but Dvd— 

Amy looks sad at the rejection. She looks down at David and strokes his cheek. 

Divad glares at Dvd, and Syd is fairly sure they’re starting one of their private conversations. And then they remember that it’s not private. 

Divad sighs in frustration. “Dvd,” he says aloud. “David and I both forgave Amy. I know you want to. So just do it already.”

"Don't tell me what to do," Dvd says, stubborn.

"What do you think's gonna happen?" Divad says. "She's giving up her power of attorney. She's not in charge of us anymore. It's safe to forgive her."

"People lie all the time," Dvd says. "Amy lied to us all the time. If we could hear her thoughts, then we'd know what she really thinks."

"So you're just gonna hold on to all your grudges until we get the crown off?" Divad asks.

"They need us to stop the shit beetle," Dvd says. "They have to take off the crown or we can't do that. That's when we'll know."

"And what if that's too late?" Divad presses. "Farouk won't have to wait for that. God knows what he's already doing to us when we're sleeping with David." He shudders and Dvd grimaces.

"Guy's gotta point," Lenny says. "You're making it easy for that asshole."

"The shit beetle doesn't just use bad things to torture us," Dvd says, annoyed. "He uses love and trust. I'm not gonna leave us wide open."

"That's true," Syd admits. Dvd seems annoyed to have her agreeing with him, so she continues. "Farouk uses every part of the cow, right? And it's healthy to— Remember when you were hurt, so you can be careful."

"Exactly," Dvd says. "That's my job. If I don’t remember all the bad stuff that happened to David, I can't stop it from happening again."

"I thought you didn't have jobs," Lenny says. "You're all just headmates, right?"

Dvd huffs, annoyed. "Divad still lectures everyone. And David still—" He falters. 

"What was David's job again?" Syd asks, even though she knows the answer. 

When Dvd doesn't answer, Divad does. "Suffering. David's job was to suffer."

"Then it's a good thing you don't have jobs anymore," Amy says, looking directly at Dvd.

Dvd glares back at her, but it's half-hearted.

"I don't want you to forget, Dvd," Amy says. "Not forgetting what I did is very important to me. It's motivating me to be a better sister, a better person. To stop what happened from happening again. Not just to your system, but to other people. I don't want my legacy to be— Ignoring the truth because it was painful, because— It wasn't convenient. But I am trying to forgive, because that pain— It's in the way of what I really want. And what I want is to have my family back. To be happy with them. With you."

"I want that, too," Divad says, affected.

"What do you want, Dvd?" Amy asks. "What would make you happy?"

"The shit beetle's death," Dvd declares. "I have my system and I have David so I don't need anything else."

"What are you gonna do?" Lenny asks. "Just hang out on the inside again? Stare at people? Sounds kinda dull."

"It's fine," Dvd insists.

"Kerry thought it was fine," Lenny points out. "But guess what?"

"David will always need me to protect him," Dvd says.

"And that'll still be a full-time job?" Syd asks. "Even without Farouk?"

"Obviously," Dvd says. "Especially with you around."

Syd stiffens, but she's not going down that easy. "Don't you want me and David to work things out?"

"It doesn't matter what I want," Dvd says. "What matters is what makes David happy."

"I don't think he'll be happy being with me if you're miserable," Syd says.

"That sounds like your problem," Dvd smirks.

"You just told David 'we got your girlfriend back'," Lenny points out. "So you're lying to him? Are you gonna start hiding your thoughts again, too? Hmm, lying and manipulation, who does that sound like?"

"Shut up!" Dvd says, loudly.

David frowns, stirs. Divad glares at Dvd. Dvd slumps and shuts his mouth.

"Shh, everything's okay," Amy soothes. After a minute, David settles again.

"If he needs sleep, then just make him sleep," Dvd mutters.

"I don't want to do that to him anymore," Divad says. "It was wrong. I was acting like Farouk. David needs to make his own decisions. That's why Amy's not in charge of us anymore. We can help him, but we can't— Be in charge of him."

"You managed David a lot, when you were both inside," Amy says. "Like how Cary managed Kerry."

"I made him better," Dvd says, quietly but firm.

"We made him give us what we wanted," Divad says, tersely. "Because the monster messed us up to make us think we had to. It was wrong, Dvd. What we did to him was wrong."

"What you did was wrong," Dvd says, angry. "Forget the monster, you're the one I had to protect him from."

Divad looks away, visibly hurt.

"Giving Farouk that show already?" Lenny says, annoyed. "You remind me of me, and trust me, that's not a compliment."

"Fuck you," Dvd says, baring his teeth.

"I'd say fuck you, but you're already busy fucking yourself," Lenny says. "And David. You are absolutely fucking David. And not in the fun way."

Dvd is angry and upset, and he turns away. Syd recognizes that look. He's wishing he could run away, find some quiet place to be miserable in. But he's trapped in this room and there's still no bedroom for him to hide in.

"I know you hate me because David loves me more than he loves you," Syd says, calmly.

Dvd stares at her, startled.

"It's okay," Syd says. "To be honest— I'm jealous of you. The closeness you and Divad share with him. Nothing will ever keep you apart. If you get through this, you'll have a lifetime to make new memories with him. And those old feelings he still has, if you nurture them— He'll love you so much. He wants to."

Dvd's anger fizzles out. Divad eases, and gives David a meaningful look.

"I'm glad he doesn't remember me," Divad admits, quietly. "You're right. I was awful to him. Even before—" He pauses, turns to Dvd. "He loved you so much even Farouk couldn't wipe it all away. You got the best of both worlds, you know that? A fresh start and a love that strong? You have everything Syd and I want, but you're so angry you can't see it."

"Talk about leaving yourself wide open," Lenny says, shaking her head.

"You think pain will save you," Syd says, certain. "That's what I thought, too. I tried to teach that to David but all it did was hurt him. That's what pain does. It won't make us strong, Dvd. It can't. And if you don't let yourself heal, you'll lose everything you think you're protecting. You'll lose David. Even if you survive Farouk."

Dvd looks like he got hit with a couple of Kerry's right hooks. He looks at David, distraught. "I can't lose him," he says, and gives Amy a pleading look.

"Then— Do what we always should have done," Divad says, gently. "Give him what he actually needs, not— What we think he needs. He needs us to get better so our system can heal. So— He can remember."

Dvd stares at Divad. 

"The traumatic amnesia," Divad reminds him. "David needs those memories back. We're in those memories, Dvd. Whatever's left, we're in them. Because we were always there for everything. Do you think he wants all that pain back for himself? He wants it back for _us_."

"He shouldn't remember," Dvd insists, upset.

"He wants to," Divad says. "He needs to."

"No," Dvd says, certain. "The whole point of me remembering is so he doesn't have to! It was in the books!" His voice grows hoarse with emotion. "That's what we're for! To protect him!" 

"Those books were wrong," Divad says. "And you know how I know that? Because if they could have actually helped us, Farouk would've made us forget them. But he didn't. The whole point of— What we are is— To share. To not have to carry anything alone. You don't want to feel anything alone, right? So why do you have to remember it alone?"

Dvd breaks into tears. 

Divad sighs and pulls Dvd into his arms. Dvd protests but Divad holds on to him, and Dvd gives in and holds him back.

Syd and Lenny look at each other, and they're both relieved. Syd watches Divad comfort Dvd, sees David sleeping in Amy's care, and realizes—

They're not David. Divad and Dvd. They're all a system, obviously, but— Even talking to them individually wasn't really like talking to different people. It was just— David acting strangely. Seeing all three of them at once, seeing them interacting, seeing— The fullness of them— 

If she and David do get back together— She'll never have the same relationship with his headmates as she has with him. She can't. Any more than— Loving one triplet means automatically loving the other two. 

And that's why Farouk doesn't want them. Maybe he doesn't think they're real, but that doesn't actually matter. What he wants is David, just like her. And Divad and Dvd are not David. Even though they share duplicate memories, even though they've swapped entire parts of themselves. Somehow— David is always David. Dvd is always Dvd. Divad is always Divad.

She thinks about how she tried to talk to Dvd yesterday like they were already in a relationship. She was wrong. Dvd was there, of course. But he was just— Sharing David's relationship with her. Whatever she'll have with Dvd and Divad— They have to build it together.

It's not a fresh start. She doubts it'll ever be easy. The three of them are all— Intense and high maintenance. But they're a package deal, a mandatory buy one get two free. And she feels like— She's connected with all of them in different ways. And for the first time, she wonders—

What if they're what she needs? Someone like her, prone to jealousy, and in some ways— As wounded and needy as they are. Maybe their ability to— Balance each other out— Will help her find her own balance. And she won't have to worry so much about hurting David when Divad and Dvd are always there, ready to protect him. 

She actually— Feels better, knowing David has them. Knowing they have each other. She's always worried so much about David. But he's getting better, they're all getting better. And they're finding their healthy multiplicity. Maybe Clark was right. Maybe the four of them together— Are better than two.


	130. Day 12: Professor Charles Xavier

David sits up, pushing aside the blanket draped over him, and rubs the sleep from his face. 

"Hey, sleepyhead," Lenny says. She closes her notebook and puts it aside.

David orients himself, seeing— Everyone else is at the table. Divad is talking to Syd, and Dvd is with Amy. They all look— Happy? He blinks, not entirely sure if he's awake. But no, that's— Definitely what he's seeing.

He slumps back, groggy and relieved.

"You were seriously wiped," Lenny says. "We thought we'd let you recharge before— Y'know."

"Right," David sighs, remembering. And then his eyes open wide. "My dreams!"

"Don't worry," Lenny says. "You didn't snooze long enough to get out of NREM. It's only the REM stuff we gotta worry about. Farouk can only mess with you for like, two hours a night max."

David's not entirely sure that's reassuring.

Lenny stands up. "C'mon, I wanna watch you eat." 

"Food voyeur," David mutters. He follows her to the table. Everyone else has already finished, but it looks like— They had something with rice and a sauce. 

"Hey," Syd says, and smiles. David can't get over how relaxed she looks. "How're you feeling?"

"Um, awake," David offers. There's a glass of water waiting for him along with his covered bowl. He takes a long drink, then lifts the lid. "Curry?" he asks, sure there's a story behind the choice, since there usually is.

"Cary wanted it," Kerry says. "It's what Oliver made for us when we first met." She smiles at Oliver. "Cary needed a good memory."

"Um, hey Cary," David tries, feeling a bit strange, but— Cary just happens to be inside, so— Even if Cary can't talk himself yet, he should be addressed directly. "Thanks, this smells delicious."

"Cary says Oliver was a fantastic cook," Kerry relays. "And in curries everything is soft, so I like it, too. There's a lot of flavors, though."

David tries it. The curry does indeed have a lot of flavors, and even a little heat. But they all blend together just right. David finds he's starving and digs in. "It's really good," he tells Cary, through a mouthful.

Kerry's pleased. "Cary says he's glad you like it."

David's halfway through the bowl when he remembers— What's happened every time he works on his possession trauma. He slows and then puts down his spoon.

"Cary wants to know if something's wrong," Kerry says, concerned.

"No, no," David says. "It's just— Maybe I shouldn't fill up, you know?"

Lenny winces. "Yeah, probably. But hey, if it's all gonna come back up anyway, might as well enjoy it now."

Again, David feels less than reassured. He picks his spoon back up anyway, and tries not to rush. The curry is delicious. It's nice, thinking that it means good things to Cary and Kerry and— Well, presumably Oliver doesn't remember yet, but someday he will. All his memories are waiting inside him. David feels another pang of longing.

For some reason, that thought has an effect on Dvd. David notices that— His eyes are puffy and a little red, like he's been crying. David knows that look well, from staring at his own reflection.

"Um, Dvd— Are you okay?" David asks.

Dvd hesitates, then meets David's eyes. "I'm forgiving Amy. And I'm trying to forgive Divad and Syd."

"Wow," David says, impressed. "Dvd, that's fantastic!" 

"It's really hard," Dvd admits. "But— I need to do it for us. All of us." He gives David a hopeful look.

"I'm really proud of you," David says, and smiles.

Dvd relaxes and smiles back. 

"Dvd's doing great," Divad says. "I'm proud of him, too."

"We all are," Amy says, warmly.

"Enough, enough," Dvd says, embarrassed. It's adorable.

"Cary says he was hoping the curry would help Oliver remember," Kerry says. 

"Did it?" David asks, turning to Oliver.

"No," Oliver says, disappointed. "But at the moment I'm rather distracted. Perhaps I'll try it again later."

"We'll get to work as soon as you're ready," Ptonomy tells David. "But we've got a few minutes."

David nods, and concentrates on clearing his head, mentally preparing himself for what's ahead. He finds his attention drifting back to Syd.

"You seem— Happy," David tells her.

"I guess I am," Syd admits. "I realized— I have a lot of good things I want to hold on to." She looks at Dvd, and they share some meaningful exchange.

David doesn't think he's ever seen Dvd have a meaningful exchange. Certainly not with _Syd_.

"I should take more naps," David decides.

Syd laughs— _Laughs_. It's soft and breathy, and it makes her eyes sparkle. He feels suddenly like— He's falling in love with her all over again.

Apparently the nap was good for him, too.

"We can do the possession work in the garden, if you think that'll help," Ptonomy offers.

David considers that. It feels novel to be given the choice. "Here's probably better," he decides. He needs the infrastructure for something this big. And even thought the garden is soothing, the lab feels— Safe. 

When David's ready, they clean up lunch and move back to the sitting area. Oliver and Ptonomy take their loveseat as usual. But David finds himself on the sofa between Kerry and Amy, while Divad sits with Syd in the other loveseat, and Dvd and Lenny take the beanbag chairs. It feels like— Finally having his whole system visible together has made them— Truly part of the group.

No, not the group. Not even friends. They're a family now. No adoptions necessary.

"I like that thought," Divad tells him. "Can we tell Syd and the Karies?"

"Um, sure," David says, feeling himself blush.

"David thinks— We're a family," Divad tells them. "All of us."

"That's lovely," Amy says, pleased. 

"I can work with that," Lenny says.

Syd gives David a shy look. "Are you sure?" she asks him.

"I guess I am," David says. The feeling is new, but— He likes it. He wants it. And with everything they're facing— He knows it'll give him the strength to get through this. He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "Okay. Let's do this."

"Okay," Ptonomy says. He hands over the possession work David did before. 

'FUCK THE SHIT BEETLE' tops the page, written with feeling. David gives a surprised little laugh. He forgot about that. He wrote this only two days ago, but so much has happened since then. Maybe they haven't worked on this directly, but— 

He reads the list and doesn't feel amused anymore. 

_~~Made me schizophrenic.~~ _  
_Lived inside me and fed on me._  
_Took me over and made me hurt people._  
_~~Made me forget and sculpted me.~~ _  
_Made me schizophrenic._

Memories from that session trickle back to him. He remembers Lenny crossed out the schizophrenia line and then he wrote it back in. They talked about the astral plane. He realized that years of his memories were copied from Divad. And that was when— He finally realized he’s still the same David. That's why— He was able to cross out the other line.

“Let’s do what we did with Syd,” Ptonomy says. “Let’s talk about your goals. What's your to-do list for this? What's a successful outcome? What do you want to achieve?”

"Well I don't want to trust Farouk again," David says, with bitter humor. 

"So you want to be able to protect yourself from him?" Ptonomy suggests. "You don't want him to be able to manipulate you?"

"Yes," David says, firmly. He thinks about that. "I guess— With all the therapy— I understand myself better. How different things— Affect me. How to manage that. But I— This is—" He pauses, looks at the list again. He thinks about his Syd lists. _Things Syd did under Farouk's control,_ Ptonomy said. Things David did under Farouk's control.

_Made me hurt people._

"I need to figure out— What was him and what was me," David decides. "If blaming myself for what went wrong— Makes me vulnerable— If what we have is— An abusive relationship— Then I need to untangle— _Us_. Me and— Amahl Farouk. I need to— Recognize what I did wrong so I can learn from it. And recognize what he did so I can stop him from doing it again."

It feels like everything he's learned led up to that. It feels like an accomplishment, like climbing a mountain and looking back to see how far he's come.

"That's excellent work," Ptonomy praises, pleased. "Write that down."

 _Farouk Therapy Goals_ , David writes. And then he writes as he says aloud: "Protect myself from manipulation. Separate Farouk's choices from my own. Learn from my mistakes. Say NO."

The last one feels the most important. Whatever Farouk wants from him, whatever Farouk is already doing to him— David wants to say NO to all of that, loud and clear.

"Sounds good to us," Dvd says, eagerly. Divad smiles at both of them.

"Anything else?" Ptonomy asks.

David thinks again. "Farouk wasn't just my schizophrenia. He's also— My haphephobia. Right?"

"The trauma he caused is what upsets you when you try to share your body," Ptonomy agrees. 

"I know Syd and Lenny are working on theirs," David says, and gives them both small smiles. "And Kerry and Cary are— Learning to share their body. And I was able to share with my headmates for the lamp. But I want— To be comfortable with them. I don't want to be reminded of Farouk every time we share. I want what Farouk took away from us."

"That's an excellent goal," Ptonomy says. "So what you do think will help you do that?"

"Control?" David tries. "I need to feel— In control of touch. Internal touch. But it's not just— Acclimating, right? It's the feeling. So I need to— Process what happened so I can change the feeling."

"Very good," Ptonomy praises. "Let's add that to the list."

"Find ways to be in control of touch when sharing," David says and writes. "Process my trauma so I can let it go. Share my body with my headmates."

"Okay if I make a suggestion?" Ptonomy says.

David nods.

"The reality is that you're never going to forget Farouk," Ptonomy says. "And I don't think you want to. I think you've had enough of forgetting. Right?"

"Yeah," David admits.

"So don't put the health of your system on forgetting," Ptonomy says. "What you need to do is— Make a strong, positive association with the sensation of sharing your body. Then do what Lenny's doing with her double memories. Build up that good feeling, make it strong. And try to separate yourself from the bad feeling. Weaken it so it can't get in the way."

"Replace a bad idea with a good one?" David recognizes.

"Exactly," Ptonomy says. "I hope fixing the rocket lamp with your system was a good start to that."

"It was," David realizes. 

' _Yes_ ,' Divad thinks, quietly thrilled.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "But those negative associations are powerful. It's going to take work to beat them."

"Whatever it takes," David says, certain. 

"Then add that to your list," Ptonomy says.

With determination, David adds, "Make my positive associations with sharing strong. Make my negative associations with sharing weak."

He looks over both his Farouk lists, and then— "Took me away from my system," he adds to the Trauma list. 

He looks at Divad and Dvd. They're both deeply affected, and Dvd wipes at his eyes. 

"I think it's safe to say— You're back together again," Ptonomy says, warmly.

"We are," David agrees, and feels— Glad about that. He feels relieved and— Like they're the rocket lamp, put back back together and slowly mending. 

"I guess we are the lamp," Dvd sighs, pouting about it but— Happy, too.

David has such a good, warm feeling. He thinks— That will help his positive associations a lot. 

"Okay," he says, ready. "What's next?"

"Is there anything else you want to add to either list?" Ptonomy asks.

David reads them again. "Not right now," he decides. 

"Then let's get started," Ptonomy says. "Let's walk through what happened with Farouk, just like we did with Benny. Let's look back at all that from where you are now. And as we go, we'll work on the goals on your list. Sound good?"

"I'm ready," David says.

"We can pick up where we left off," Ptonomy says. "You got lost on the astral plane. Oliver found you, brought you to his ice cube. He tried to explain about the monster, and then you left. Tell us what happened next."

David thinks back, tries to relive that moment. He sees Lenny sitting across from him and remembers—

"I was— Wandering around, completely lost," he says. He closes his eyes, recalling the murky green landscape of the astral plane, shifting and strange. He doesn't know how long he was there, until— "I was worried about Amy and— I had to get back to Syd. And then— Lenny showed up." He opens his eyes, and Lenny is still there. "I— Thought it was Lenny. Maybe. I didn't know what I thought."

"What did Farouk do?" Ptonomy asks. "What did he say?"

"She was— _He_ was playing with me," David admits. "Taunting me. I asked her— _him_ if— He was my friend and— He said— Whatever was happening was your fault, you and Melanie and— Cary and Kerry. The shot. He said— We had to get out of there. Together. And then— He showed me Syd."

David looks to Syd, meets her gaze. "He told me— He could help me save you. I just had to— Concentrate. Get angry, really angry." He tenses as he remembers— That white-hot, justified rage. _They were going to kill Syd and he had to stop them._ He _had_ to. 

It was the same feeling. Just like he felt torturing Oliver, just like he felt facing Farouk in the desert. Playing the hero, playing god, feeling— Absolutely certain what he was doing was righteous and necessary. 

"I did what he wanted me to do," David admits looking down, away. Every one of those moments, he was being manipulated, used. He was playing right into Farouk's hands. "And then—" He pauses. He looks at Lenny, at Dvd beside her. He swallows. 

"It's okay," Amy soothes. She rests a hand on his back, gives it a rub. David focuses on the feeling of her palm, lets it steady him. He takes a breath, lets it out. 

"When it happened," David starts. "It felt—" He pauses again, struggling. It's so hard to put this into words. "I was— Confused and lost and then all of a sudden— I felt— Completely in control. Of myself, my powers, the world." God, looking back, he can see the pattern so clearly, just like he did with Benny. That control, that's the bliss, the hook, the— The thing he _needs_ so much he'll give up everything for a taste. 

Everything.

If he's supposed to untangle— Farouk's choices from his own— If he has to learn what went wrong so he can stop it from happening again— 

"I don't—" David starts. "I don't want to be some kind of— Vengeful god. But he makes me want it." He looks to Ptonomy, needing him to make sense of it.

"Okay," Ptonomy says, considering. "Farouk takes natural fears, wants, and exploits them, magnifies them. If you're afraid of something, like— Syd being hurt, he creates a situation where you believe her life is in immediate danger. If there's something you crave, like a sense of control over yourself, your life— A healthy thing to want— He ties that up with controlling everyone else, too. Package deal.”

David thinks back to that moment again. He thinks about the times he met with Farouk on the astral plane and Farouk would always— Taunt him. Provoke him. But also— Urge him to take control, just like before. To be a god. No, to be like Farouk’s idea of a god. 

“He wants me to be in control,” David starts, puzzling over it. “But he doesn’t want that. If he wanted it, he’d just— Let me be in control.”

“That’s true,” Ptonomy agrees. “So even though that’s what he says, he must want something else.”

All that control, giving it and taking it— “It’s all just a game to him,” David says. “He doesn’t want anything but— Entertainment. Revenge.” Against the father David never knew. “Thirty years of torture isn’t enough?”

“I don’t think he knows how to stop,” Ptonomy offers. “How about we go over what we do know about Amahl Farouk?”

“Yes,” David says, ready for it. 

“We don’t know how old he is or where he came from,” Ptonomy says. “But our first records of him were in Egypt. Eventually he was identified in Morocco as the head of a crime syndicate. He was very powerful, politically. We think he used his powers to blackmail people. He also ran the usual rackets: protection, gambling, prostitution, smuggling.”

It’s deeply strange to think of Farouk as— Not an obsessive monster but— An actual person with a history, with— An entire life that had nothing to do with David Haller. 

“And then your biological father took him down,” Ptonomy continues. “We don’t know much. Maybe your father covered his tracks, made any witnesses forget. But we know he took Farouk’s body with him, took it to the desert, to the monks. That’s a lot of trouble to go through for a dead body.”

“So he knew Farouk’s mind was still alive?” David guesses. Wandering the astral plane— Like Oliver?

“It seems likely,” Ptonomy agrees. “Farouk’s body is indestructible. Your father may have also wanted to keep it out of anyone’s reach.”

"Do you know anything about— My father?" David asks. "Who he was, why he— Did any of that?"

"We know he must have been an extremely powerful telepath," Ptonomy says. "Mutants with those abilities— They do what Oliver did to protect Summerland. They cover their tracks, make people forget about them, what they're capable of."

"Farouk knows who he is," David says. "So we need to know what he knows, right?"

"I agree," Divad says. "Cary, you're the one who knew about Farouk, right?" he asks, turning to the Karies. "Who else did you know about?"

"Cary says Oliver was the one who found mutants," Kerry says. "Oliver, do you remember the other telepaths you found?"

Oliver shakes his head. "Not unless— They were among the dead."

"Cary says he hopes that's not what happened to your dad," Kerry says. "He says— If we go by sheer power alone, and of course your father being male— There is one possible candidate. We can't be sure it's him, but—"

"Cary?" Ptonomy prompts.

"Cary says he's sorry but— He didn't say anything sooner because he didn't want to tell the Divisions. He doesn't even know if he's still alive. All of this is— Simply conjecture, there are other powerful telepaths, it didn't necessarily have to be this one."

"Ugh, just spit it out," Dvd says, impatient.

"Professor Charles Xavier," Kerry relays, letting some of Cary's reluctance into her voice. "The most powerful telepath Oliver ever found. Aside from you, of course. If anyone was capable of defeating Farouk—"

"Charles Xavier?" David echoes, looking around at everyone. Divad and Dvd look around, too.

"Professor," Oliver murmurs. "I believe— Farouk mentioned a professor."

"Recently?" Ptonomy asks.

"There was a woman," Oliver says. "A driver. She knew the way to the desert."

"What woman?" Ptonomy asks, sharper.

" _Tu étais assez riche, pour devenir cent fois toi-même en une seule fleur_ ," Oliver sings, startling everyone. He turns to David. "We really must make that barbershop quartet. Long overdue."

"Oliver," Ptonomy says, firmly, trying to get him to focus. "This woman, she knew Xavier?"

"She must have," Oliver says. "Though I'm afraid— Farouk killed her. But she didn't seem to mind."

"Then it really was him?" Kerry asks. "This professor guy is really the Davids' dad?"

"We can't be completely sure, but— Possibly," Ptonomy says. He seems thoughtful.

"My father," David says, stunned as it sinks in. He looks at Dvd and Divad and sees they feel the same. "Our father," he corrects. He and his headmates all turn to look at the Karies.

"Cary, you have to tell us about him," Divad says.

Kerry listens, then relays. "Cary says— After Oliver disappeared, Melanie asked for his help. Not just with finding Oliver but— With Summerland. But—" Kerry stops. "Cary, it's probably fine," she says. "The war's over, right?" She listens some more, then huffs. "Cary says there's things he can't say because it would put lives in danger. But he can say that— Charles couldn't join us because he had— His own concerns. But he was able to help Summerland stay hidden."

"Charles?" Divad asks, his eyebrows raised. "You were friends with our dad?"

"You and Melanie never told me about this," Ptonomy says, annoyed.

"Cary says he's sorry," Kerry relays. "But this information was and still is deeply sensitive. And by the time you joined us, Charles was— No longer available to help."

"He's dead?" David asks, warily.

"Cary doesn't know where he is now," Kerry relays. "But he's— No longer on this planet."

"What, did aliens abduct him?" Dvd sneers.

"Well, yes," Kerry relays. "Shi'ar, to be precise. Though it was quite consensual, I assure you."

David has to take that in. 

"I'm sorry, you said our father left Earth years ago to hang out with some aliens?" Divad asks, astonished. "And since when are aliens real?"

"Oh, there are many alien civilizations with faster-than-light travel," Kerry relays. "In fact, the orb that took you was made using Shi'ar technology."

David stares at the Karies. "Are you— Are you saying my _dad_ kidnapped me? Us?"

"Not at all," Kerry relays. "Well, probably not. I suppose it's possible he came back, but— Oh! I just realized I'm talking." She smiles. No— _Cary_ smiles. 

"Cary?" Amy asks.

"It's me," Cary says, and sounds a little shocked about it. He looks down at himself, at— His system's body. "I'm— Fronting."

"Is Kerry okay?" Dvd asks, frowning.

Cary goes still, and then— "I'm okay," Kerry says. "Wow, it's weird being inside again." Kerry goes still, and then— "I suppose nothing feels more natural to me than explaining," Cary jokes. 

"This session has officially gone off the rails," Lenny declares.

"Yeah," Ptonomy sighs. "Cary, I'm really glad you're able to control your system's body, but— We need to focus."

"Of course," Cary says. "My apologies. Ah, Davids— I hope that answers your questions about Charles?"

"This hasn't even begun to answer our questions," Divad declares. "What the hell, Cary? Why didn't you tell us before?"

"Well, I mean, I had no way of knowing Charles was your father until now," Cary says. "And it's still not absolutely certain. But if he was your father— He was a very good man. He was— Often forced to make difficult choices, but—"

"Difficult choices like abandoning his son?" David says, upset. "You know what? _Screw him_. Farouk was right. My dad was an asshole." He crosses his arms, furious. His whole life could've been different. If his asshole of a father had actually brought him to Summerland and they'd been able to help him— 

His life didn't have to be torture. It _didn't._ There was a choice made for him and it wasn't Farouk's. 

"I'm sorry, I can't—" David starts, and cuts himself off. He stands up and walks out of the sitting area, stops and turns back. "I need a break," he tells them, and walks away from everyone, especially Cary.


	131. Day 12: I want to share again.

Charles Xavier is his birth father. Apparently. David wonders if that makes him David Xavier. Probably not, he probably wasn't even named David before he was— Abandoned? _Thrown away?_ And what about his birth mother? Who was she, why did she— _Why didn't they just keep him?_

God, he can't deal with this. He can't deal with this right now, there's so much he has to work on and they don't even know for sure if Charles Xavier is the right guy because Oliver's still too swiss cheese to remember and if it isn't him there's no point in getting invested in someone who isn't even on the planet anymore and _who the fuck leaves the planet? With aliens?!_

Calm. He's calm. He's breathing. In, out, slow and deep.

It's a shock. He's used to shocks by now. Or he should be. It's not the worst one he's had, not even just today. Fuck, Cary's body died this morning, this is nothing. It might not even be the right guy, he can't let this— _Possibility_ derail everything they're trying to achieve.

"Okay," he says to himself. Okay. He turns and goes back to the sofa. He sits down and opens his notebook to the last round of foundation work.

"Learn about Charles Xavier," he says and adds to his to-do list. "Find my birth parents. Process feelings about my birth parents." He pauses, then writes, 'Aliens?!?!' Then he straightens up and gives Ptonomy a determined look. "Where were we?"

Ptonomy gives a surprised little laugh. "You handled that really well, David. Good job."

David rubs his palms against his legs. "Pick what I want to focus on, right? Whoever my— Our parents are, we'll deal with it later. They haven't mattered for thirty years, they can wait."

"Dvd, Divad?" Ptonomy prompts. 

Dvd and Divad look at each other. 

Divad turns to David. "Guess we'll add it to our notebooks, too."

Dvd gives a long-suffering sigh but both of them open their mental notebooks and write. 

'Aliens?' Dvd thinks, annoyed. 'Asshole. Stress responses don't have to deal with shitty alien abducted deadbeat dads.'

Lenny snorts. Syd gives her a quizzical look. Lenny mouths 'later.'

The Karies open their mouth to speak, but then close it again. David doesn't know if it was Cary or Kerry, but he'd guess it was Cary. Kerry isn't really the hesitating type.

"So let's focus on Farouk," Ptonomy says. "And let's look at your Farouk list again. Is there anything you feel you're making progress on?"

David switches back to the Farouk sheets. "I guess— The first three." Protect himself from manipulation. Separate Farouk's choices from his own. Learn from his mistakes.

"How about we keep working on those?" Ptonomy says. "Let's talk about what happened next, after Farouk convinced you to let him have control."

"Right," David says, and tries to put himself back there again. Forget about his parents, they forgot about him. Focus on Farouk, focus on— Lenny.

He looks at Lenny. 

Lenny doesn't look pleased. "I'm not him," she mutters. 

"I know," David says, apologetic. "I wasn't— Sure you were you, I saw your body, but— Nothing made sense and— You're my friend. Of course I trusted you."

"You're saying it was my fault?" Lenny asks, offended.

"No, no, of course not, I didn't— That's not what I meant," David says. How did this suddenly become an argument? "I know it was Farouk, I know that now, I know— None of it was your choice."

"But?" Lenny prompts, challengingly.

David sighs. "If he hadn't— Pretended to be you— He would have been like Oliver, some— Weird guy I didn't feel safe with. I wouldn't have let him—" He can't finish.

"Let him what?" Ptonomy prompts, voice soft but insistent.

David crosses his arms, pulls in on himself. He doesn't feel nauseous yet, but— he feels like he's about to be. 

"David," Ptonomy says. "Remember— When we talked about fear. Your body senses a threat and it's trying to protect you. From painful memories, from— The vulnerabilities that Farouk takes advantage of. Those vulnerabilities— They're exactly what we need to get at."

"I know," David says, tightly.

"Farouk already knows them," Ptonomy reminds him. "He already knows everything about you. So this is about you knowing yourself. Do you need to protect yourself from yourself?"

"Apparently," David mutters. When Ptonomy just gives him a look, David huffs. "No," he admits, and feels— His grip on himself loosen.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "So what did you let Farouk do?"

David tightens up again, but he does his best to keep going. He can't get to it thinking about Farouk, so he tries— "Lenny. I let Lenny— Help me." He looks at her, apologetic but— Needing this.

"Lenny," Ptonomy accepts. "Okay. How did she help you?"

David breathes out. "She said— She could help me be— Everything I wanted to be. And when she—" He wavers, his stomach turning. "Entered me." His voice is shaky. "It felt— So good." God, it did, even though now— He swallows, fighting nausea.

"Throw up if you gotta," Kerry says, and puts an empty bucket on the table. David takes it and holds on to it. At least he won't have to run to the sink.

They give him a moment. The nausea eases.

"Everything you wanted to be?" Ptonomy asks. 

David shakes his head, not denying but trying to understand. "I don't— Know how to explain—" He falters, tries again. "It was like— Suddenly things made sense. I understood. I was so confused and lost and then— I wasn't anymore. Because of her. And it felt so— _Right_. Not being— Alone in myself. Like there was this— Emptiness inside me and she filled it, she— Made me whole."

There's a terrible moment as David realizes what that feeling was, as Dvd and Divad and everyone else realizes what that feeling was. Divad is sober, solemn. Dvd's furious and on the verge of tears.

"That was ours," Dvd spits out. "That was our feeling and he stole it! He ruined it!"

"That's— What it feels like?" David half-asks, because it's not really a question. That feeling of— Not invasion but— _Return_. Once she was inside him, it felt like— She was always meant to be there. Like every bad thing in his life had only been— Because she was missing.

"Yes," Divad says, quietly. "That's what it feels like."

Dvd gives Divad an angry, hurt look, then turns away, pulls in on himself just like David did before. Divad gives a frustrated sigh and pulls in on himself, too.

"I'm sorry," David tries, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"The emptiness," Ptonomy says. "Have you always felt that?"

"I don't know," David admits. "I was— Anxious, depressed— There was so much noise in my head all the time and I couldn't—" He grips at the bucket. "Nothing felt right. Nothing about me felt right. I don't know— How much was— Farouk torturing me and— How much was— What he took away."

"That's a lot to untangle," Ptonomy admits. 

"I was sick," David says, and looks at Ptonomy. "That's what I knew. I was sick and broken and— I deserved it. And it was never going to stop. And then she just— Made it stop."

"You didn't feel sick anymore," Ptonomy says.

"Everything was gone," David admits. "All the— Pain and fear— The confusion— My powers, I— Knew how to use them, control them. Just like that. I was so lost and she— Made me found."

"That must have been a powerful moment," Ptonomy says.

"God it was," David breathes. He looks at Lenny. "I was so grateful to you, I trusted you so much. I—" His body tenses again. He tries to say it, but his throat locks up. He struggles, frustrated, but he can't even think it.

"Okay," Ptonomy soothes. "It's okay."

"David," Amy says. "I'm going to touch you. Okay?"

David manages a nod. When Amy touches his arm he tenses even more, but her hand is steady and he focuses on it, lets it help. He lets out a shaky breath.

"So it wasn't just Syd and Lenny that Farouk used," Ptonomy says, in a calm tone. "He used the system he took away from you. He used their absence, knowing— Sharing would feel right to you."

Tears well in David's eyes, spill over. He nods once, unable to speak. There's an enormous pain in his throat, stopping him up. God, it kills him that— Farouk knew all this pain was here, Farouk put it in him and— Now he's savoring it all over again. Fuck him, fuck that absolute _monster_.

Farouk was inside him. Not just— In his body, but— _In_ him, guiding his thoughts, his actions, making— A cocktail out of them. And David _loved_ it. He loved it, it felt so good and right and like everything he ever needed. And then—

His stomach roils, but he can't throw up any more than he can speak. His whole body feels like it's trying to reject itself. He feels Amy trying to soothe him but a sick heat comes over him and his senses start to fade.

"Shit," someone says. And then Lenny's right in front of him, patting his cheek, and Kerry and Amy are holding onto him.

"Hey, stay with us, okay?" Lenny urges, worried. "You can't break my streak, remember? No going away. C'mon, kid, stay with me."

He doesn't— God, he doesn't want to go. He feels Amy and Kerry taking his hands and he grips back with all his might. He feels that blankness pulling at him, a black hole of absence dragging him down. He's in the event horizon and he has to get free.

He focuses everything he has on Kerry and Amy and— Lenny. On Lenny. Lenny, his best friend who went through hell because of the parasite in his head and _he won't abandon her again._

The sick heat breaks. The world fills back in. He takes gulping breaths as the pull fades away. And then the nausea roils back at full force and Lenny moves back just in time.

§

They take a break to give David time to recover. They give him painkillers for his pounding headache and make him drink water and wrap a blanket around him. He rests. He lies down on the sofa with his head on Amy's lap and just exists for a while. Even though he absolutely doesn't want to go away, staying always makes him feel terrible. It takes everything out of him, and all he wants to do is lie curled up in the dark until tomorrow, or even the day after.

But they can't let him do that. They have to keep going.

When he feels only mostly awful, he drags himself upright and everyone comes back, sits down. Everyone's— Quiet, serious. Even Dvd.

Kerry offers him the bucket, freshly cleaned. He shakes his head and she sets it aside.

"David," Ptonomy starts, looking at him. "I know you're not up to much right now. But we're going to try to get some more done anyway. Okay?"

David gives a weary nod.

"That was a lot of hard work," Ptonomy continues. "So let's talk about it, help you process. Make it a little easier to carry. Sound good?"

"'Kay," David says. He tugs the blanket closer around himself. Amy rubs his back.

"With your permission, I'd like to discuss your thoughts," Ptonomy says. "Syd and Kerry and Cary couldn't hear them. But I think they need to. Okay?"

David nods again.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "I'd say we have— A much clearer picture of what happened now. I'm going to tell you what I see, and you can tell me if I'm wrong." He waits for David's nod, then continues. "When Farouk possessed you, made a cocktail out of the two of you— Part of the reason that felt good to you was because it was so similar to how things used to be with your system."

David nods.

"Even though Farouk took Dvd and Divad away from you," Ptonomy continues, "you're still the same David, like you always have been. You grew up sharing your existence, sharing control of your body, and accepting the guidance of others on— An essential level." 

Ptonomy looks at Dvd and Divad, and they nod.

"That means what you used to have, the comfort you had sharing with your system— That's all still inside you. That's the good. The bad is that the pain Farouk caused is in the way. That pain is fresh and very powerful, but it's limited. Sharing with Farouk didn't cause it. It was what happened when Farouk took full control."

David's stomach is empty, but he feels queasy again just thinking about that. He swallows, wondering if he should have taken the bucket back after all.

"I know it's hard to think about," Ptonomy allows. "Think of this as— Putting a circle around the problem. That first part, when you were sharing with Farouk and enjoying it? Can we address that?"

David feels it out. "I think so," he rasps.

"Good," Ptonomy says. "Syd. I think we found the answer to a question you have."

Syd straightens. "What question is that?"

"If David enjoyed being possessed," Ptonomy says. "What was it Farouk told you about that?"

Syd concentrates. "Uh. He said— You can make someone do something, but you can't make them enjoy it."

David meets Syd's eyes. 

"That was one of the things Farouk used to convince you to shoot David," Ptonomy says. "That David's enjoyment of his possession was his 'true face.' Right?"

"Yes," Syd agrees. "But he was— Talking about the attack on Division 3."

"But you knew David didn't enjoy that," Ptonomy says. "Right after that happened, he reached out to you, begged for your help. You saw how scared he was. You told us about that."

"Yes," Syd admits. 

"So why did you believe Farouk?" Ptonomy challenges.

Syd looks at David again. "Because— After you came back, the first time— You were different. You were— Confident and powerful and— Cruel." She looks down, ashamed, but then— Looks up again. “You loved it. And when you were taken, again— I thought— Was that— You?”

David wonders if she’s right, but then— “No,” he decides. “No, I didn’t— What I loved was—“ He struggles for the right words. “He— She felt— It was— Not being— Just me. I loved not being just me. And I trusted her. If she knew what was best—“

He cuts himself off as Divad and Dvd both wince.

Syd looks deeply thoughtful. She turns to Ptonomy. “Thank you. That did answer my question.”

“And if you think back to the desert now?” Ptonomy asks her. “To Farouk, to— Your confrontation with David?”

Syd closes her eyes, concentrates. “His true face,” she murmurs. She opens her eyes, looks at Dvd, at Divad, and then at David. “That was the truth he used,” she decides. “But it was Farouk’s truth, not yours. David, I’m sorry. What I did to you in the desert— That was wrong and— You’re right. I chose him over you and I was wrong to do that. I’m sorry.”

David stares at Syd, astonished. That was the last thing he expected from all this. “But you said— Before, you said— You chose the world.”

“I did,” Syd agrees. “I chose my future self, I chose the world— And I chose him. I believed what he told me because it felt true. I knew that— I didn’t really know who you were."

David takes that in. "I guess— I didn't either," he admits.

"No," Syd agrees.

They share a moment together, just— Looking at each other. It feels like— They see each other. They're not— Seeing what they want to see. David feels understood, and he feels— Like he understands Syd. Better than he did, anyway.

He wants to accept her apology now, but— He isn't ready. He needs time. There’s things he needs to work through. But maybe— That's healthy. Not forcing himself to give her what she wants. 

'You're doing the right thing,' Divad thinks to him. 

David musters a smile for him, grateful.

"Okay," Ptonomy says. "We're almost done for now. But let's talk about what you said, David. You loved not being just you."

"Yes," David says, and straightens. 

"And you trusted Lenny completely," Ptonomy continues. "She was already your best friend, and then she proved how much she could help you. She took away a lifetime's worth of pain, just like that."

David nods.

"And she told you that you couldn't trust us, right?" Ptonomy says. "Summerland, Oliver. She was the only one you could trust."

David nods.

"So even though you had your doubts about who she really was, you made a system with her. Just like the one you used to have. So everything you did was— A cocktail of the two of you. Your desires, your impulses mixed together."

"Yes," David admits, tensing again.

"Just focusing on before you left Summerland together," Ptonomy says. "From the time you returned from the astral plane. Tell us about that."

Ptonomy and his questions. David braces himself. "Okay, um. We had to save Syd first, obviously. That was— Kind of a disaster." He turns to the Karies. "Sorry about that."

Kerry nods. "It sucked."

David huffs a laugh. "Yeah. Um. So that was— Not a great start. But when it happened— It sounds awful, but— I guess it was— Hard to care?"

"You weren't worried about Kerry?" Ptonomy asks.

"Not really," David admits. "I mean, I barely knew who she was, and Lenny didn't like her. She didn't like Summerland, any of that. She kept— Pushing for us to leave. I thought— We should wait, that— We needed help to save Amy. She agreed that— We'd at least bring Syd, but—"

"Did that seem strange?" Ptonomy asks.

David shrugs. "In Clockworks, until Syd, it was really— Just the two of us." He hesitates, uncertain about his memories, and looks to Lenny. "Right?"

"Yeah," Lenny says, her voice rough.

David knows this is hard for her. He feels awful about— Not being able to face the full truth. But he couldn't do this without her. If he has to actually imagine Farouk doing all that to him— He's queasy just thinking about it.

"It's okay," Lenny says, but sadly. "Do what you gotta do."

Davids nods, accepting, but— Determined to face the full truth eventually. Lenny doesn't deserve to be— The face of his trauma.

"And sharing felt natural to you?" Ptonomy asks. "Even though you didn't remember your system at all?"

David thinks back again. "Yes. It felt right." 

'Please,' Dvd thinks, almost a whisper. David sees his headmates watching him intensely. _Needing._ Divad is less intense, but— There's need in him, too.

"More right than how you feel now?" Ptonomy asks. "Being alone in your body?"

David closes his eyes, focuses on how he feels. Beneath the exhaustion and his headache, beneath the constant low pain of the crown. Knowing everything he knows now— How does he feel?

Does he miss it? Sharing his body?

He does. It's not just— Wanting to get back something he lost, or feeling like— Sharing is something he has to do for the sake of his system. He's felt— Incomplete for so long and didn't understand why except— That he was sick. That was the only way he had to understand it. That was all Farouk let him have.

And that knowledge, that feeling— He couldn't get to it. It's been tangled up in what Farouk did to him. It still is, but— Not all of it. They worked a piece of it free.

"Yes," he says, needing to say it aloud even though most of the room heard his thoughts. "I miss it. I want to share again."

He looks at Dvd and Divad again. Dvd looks like he's about to cry from happiness.

"We will," Divad promises, smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos feed the author, which feeds the story! ^_^


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